


highway don't care (but i do, i do)

by spacelabrathor



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Attempted Kidnapping, Bonding, F/M, Knotting, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Road Trips, Scenting, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2019-08-28 08:09:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 65,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16719603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacelabrathor/pseuds/spacelabrathor
Summary: You’re a runaway. Homeless and drifting with no where to go and no one looking for you. Worse still, you’re an omega, leaving you exceedingly vulnerable to the cruelties of the world. A handsome trucker named Thor offers you safe passage, but he’s an alpha. You know it would be stupid to willingly climb into a confined space with an alpha you don’t know and can’t trust. Little do you know, though, how your path would intertwine with Thor’s. After he saves you from a bad situation, his scent starts to smell a whole lot like home.





	1. Chapter 1

At a rest stop in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, the wind is whipping and cold beneath a colorless, overcast sky. Nothing exists for miles in either direction of the little hub, the little patch of concrete with fuel pumps and a tiny store with a flashing ‘open’ sign in the window. All flat, desolate prairie as far as the eye can see, yellowed and dead this time of year, the ground just on the cusp of freezing solid.

The cold metal of the bench beneath you is starting to bite through the thin of your leggings and you shove your hands under your armpits, ducking your chin down against the dry breeze that’s chapping your cheeks. The skin under your legs is prickling at the feeling of the frigid metal and it makes you rub your thighs together restlessly.

It’s nearly sundown. You’ve been sitting on the bench outside of the one-room convenience store for a few hours, watching trucks come in, truckers file out and stock up on provisions and fuel, and roll out. Starting to shiver as the temperature drops noticeably by the hour.

You don’t know what you’re doing. What you’re waiting for, exactly. Life brought you here in a tangled, messy, roundabout way, so here you sit. No plan. No prospects. Not a penny to your name. Just frozen fingers and a storm mounting on the horizon.

A new truck pulls into the lot, diesel rumbling as it pulls up to a fuel station. You blink back tears in your eyes against the cold air and watch as the engine putters out and the driver climbs down from the cab.

Even at a distance, his size catches your eye as he moves around the cab. He’s long legged, tall and broad shouldered in jeans and a hoodie and heavy boots. He stops and looks towards you all of the sudden, like he felt you staring, and you drop your head, looking instead to the ground.

You feel his presence as he approaches the store, keeping your eyes trained down. The wind is blowing past you and towards him as he approaches, taking his scent away from you. Still, when he pauses near you, his eyes falling to you on the bench, you catch a whiff of him on the stale air.

An involuntary thrill shudders down your spine at the taste, your mouth flushing with saliva. Crushed coffee grounds and musky earth and low notes of the air after a storm. Unmistakably alpha in a way that makes your toes curl in your shoes.

You keep your eyes trained on the ground in front of you, feeling his gaze on you like a warm hand on the back of your neck before he moves on, the bell on the door of the store ringing as he pushes inside.

A wave of warmth puffs over you from inside the store and you shiver. Itching for it, barely able to stop yourself from going back inside. The clerk had asked you to wait outside earlier, explaining with an uncomfortable frown that you were loitering and even though she didn’t care, her manager would yell at her.

Not wanting any trouble, you resigned yourself to wait outside. Shivering and chewing on your lip and appraising every truck that pulled into the lot. Looking for some sign, some signal of where you should go. What you should do.

The door swings open again after a moment and you turn your face to the rush of warm air, startling when your eyes land on him. The man from before.

He’s holding two styrofoam cups, both steaming through holes in the lids, and he offers one to you, eyes creasing with a smile that is clearly going for non-threatening. Aware, it seems, of the implication of an alpha approaching a lone omega in a nearly abandoned rest stop as the sun touches the horizon.

“You seemed cold,” he says, by way of explanation when you hesitantly reach out and take the cup from him. His voice is a purr, honey warm and rumbling, and it makes the muscles in your gut twitch instinctually.

You return his smile weakly, fingers creaking with cold as they close around the warm cup. You go to take a sip and then think better of it, the steam coming from the lid singeing your lip. You look away, expecting him to move on, but he doesn’t.

He watches you, shifting his weight slowly from one foot to the other. Eyes a startling blue in the dimming sunlight, brows drawn a little on his forehead.

He is immense, even as he stands there with his shoulders hunching in, looking down at you. His face is open and honest looking, covered in a rough, dark scratch of a beard that covers his jaw and throat and disappears down into the collar of his shirt. His hair is golden and long and pulled back neatly at the nape. Dressed in layers, a shirt under a hoodie under a jean jacket, he looks prepared for the coming storm.

You shiver again, fingers clutching around the coffee cup, and he makes a soft, unhappy sound.

“Do you have somewhere to go?” he asks.

Your eyes go to his, then. A little taken aback. “What?”

His eyebrows are still pulled tight on his face as his mouth turns on a frown. “Do you have somewhere to go tonight?”

That makes your face twist, feeling very small under his gaze. A flush starting to creep up your neck under his scrutiny. “Why do you care?”

It comes out more petulant than you mean it to, but he doesn’t back away.

He watches you for a moment, eyes scanning your face, before he looks out over the prairie, where the sun is dipping past the horizon. “You’re not dressed for this weather, pup.”

Your cheeks color at the name, swallowing heavily. Looking up at him through your lashes, already feeling the bone-deep pull to him that has your heart beating hard in your chest.

You shrug and he tracks the movement.  

He nods towards his truck. “I can take you somewhere. If you want.”

You blink up at him, stupidly. “You’re an alpha.”

He has to know how dangerous that suggestion is. You’re not in heat, not anywhere close to it, but his scent is still intoxicating. Even with him standing a foot and a half away, the musk of him is sitting heavy on the back of your tongue. You know, from the steady pulse of alpha alpha alpha emanating from him, that he’s taking in your scent too.

He nods. “And you’re an omega. At a truck stop. Alone.” He looks around, eyes scanning he empty parking lot. “It’s getting dark. And cold.”

You take a cautious sip of your coffee, turning the cup in your hands. Another truck pulls into the lot and you watch it park. His eyes don’t leave you.

A beta driver could come along. Someone whose presence doesn’t make your stomach clench down out of instinct. Someone less likely to be affected by you. By your smell. Someone less likely to hurt you.

The man looking down at you doesn’t seem to have an inch of malice in his body. But you don’t know him. You don’t know him from any other alpha who would take advantage of you.

Your eyes find his. Your mouth twists down, uncomfortably. “It’s probably not a good idea.”

He blinks and waits a moment, thumb scraping over the plastic of his styrofoam cup. “Okay,” he says at last. “If you’re sure.”

You nod, taking another sip. Nerves over turning him down dissipating before they can really form as he nods. Reluctant but agreeable.

“Do you have warmer clothes?” he asks, voice gone a little softer.

You shake your head, crossing your ankles under the bench nervously. Watching his eyebrows pinch with apparent concern.

“Okay,” he says, shifting his weight again. Thinking. After a moment, he mutters, “I’ll be right back,” as he turns and walks towards his truck.

You watch him go, sipping at your drink. Heart fluttering unevenly in your chest. Entirely unsure of what to make of him.

He returns a minute later with a bundle in his hands, cup of coffee left in the truck. He extends his hand and you take the bundle, forehead creasing as you pull it apart and find a heavy flannel shirt, a pair of gloves, and a scarf. You shake your head immediately, pushing them back at him.

“I can’t,” you say, moving to stand. His outstretched hand stops you.

He shakes his head at you, resolutely. “No,” he says. “Take them. I have plenty.”

The shirt is warm to the touch under your fingertips and you bite down the urge to press it to your face. “I’m fine,” you insist weakly, the pile of clothes resting in your lap. He’s not taking them back, it seems.

He shakes his head at you again. “You’ll freeze to death out here, pup.” His voice is soft, almost catching in his throat. He’s watching you with an expression that reads like he’s barely stopping himself from dragging you back to his truck with him, his features a mess of conflict.

Your fingers curl into the shirt. Kindness is a gesture largely unknown to you and it rocks you back onto your heels. Not sure what to say or how to react.

You meet his eyes. “What’s your name?” The wind carries your voice away but he hears you.

“Thor.”

You curl the bundle of clothes to your chest and offer him a timid smile. “Thank you, Thor.”

He smiles back but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He watches you for a moment, opening his mouth like he’s going to say something, but then closing it. His feet scuff on gravel as he takes a step back from you, and then with one last glance, he turns and returns to his truck.

You take careful sips of coffee and watch as he moves around the truck, filling it with fuel and cleaning the windshield with a long-handled squeegee. When he steps up on the running board to climb into the driver’s side door, he stops and looks over at you. You raise a hand in a weak acknowledgment and think you see him nod in response before he climbs in and starts the truck up.

You watch the truck pull out of the lot and onto the highway, stomach worrying around a queasy feeling that you maybe made a mistake. But the truck doesn’t stop, doesn’t turn back, and you watch it as it drives out of sight.

You drink the rest of the coffee that’s already gone cold from the swirling wind, crushing the cup in your fist and getting up to toss it in the trash can nearby. You tug the flannel shirt on, arms sliding easily into the huge sleeves that hang well past the tips of your fingers. The puff of scent that clouds around your face when you wrap it tightly closed makes you lick your lips and swallow tightly - all earthy and warm and soft spice. All Thor, you think.

The shirt is ridiculously oversized on you, the shoulder seams reaching halfway down to your elbows, but it’s warm and clean and you can’t stop yourself from rubbing your nose against it when you pop the collar up to protect your neck from the cold. Smelling it feels like a shot of brandy, all warming and cloying on your tongue and down your throat.

You fold the scarf carefully and place it on the bench below you, relieving the skin of your thighs from the bite of the cold metal. You jam your hands into the gloves, again, ridiculously oversized, and curl your arms around your waist.

There, you sit, watching and waiting. Scanning your eyes along the horizon and the highway that disappears into it. Waiting for a sign on what you should do. Where you should go next.

 

 

The sign you’re waiting for never comes.

The clerk locks up the convenience store at 9 PM, tossing you an appropriately sad look before turning and hurrying to her car, all bundled up in a thick winter parka.

By then you’ve lost most of the feeling in your fingers and toes. As you watch her tail lights disappear into the dark, it occurs to you that you could actually die out here. Frozen solid like a bump on a log at a rest stop in the middle of the nowhere.The thought makes you laugh inexplicably, bitter and loud in air that fogs up around your lips. Delirious from the cold, apparently.

The truck that had pulled into the lot before Thor left had been driven by a beta, a nice looking man in his mid-fifties, but he’d declined your request for a ride. Backing away when you’d gotten desperate and teary eyed, apologizing sincerely when he started his truck up and left without you.

That was the last truck you saw. Hours ago, now.

This cold, you’ve curled into yourself a little. Not even really feeling the temperature anymore. Feeling the push and pull of the breeze on your face but not the sting of it. You’re very aware of the effort it takes to breathe in and out, of the slow, sluggish beat of your heart in your chest. You’ve stopped shivering and you know in some distant part of your brain that that’s not a good sign. Your head starts to nod to your chest, eyes blinking slowly as your head nods up and down as you drift off and startle yourself back awake in an unsettling, jerky rhythm.

The cut of headlights across your face jolts you awake, a groan spilling from your frozen lips as you realize that you’re not yet dead. You’ve lost all sense of time, not sure if you’d fallen asleep for a minute or an hour, but you hear the chugging rumble of a diesel engine as the lights approach. Footsteps come next, crunching on gravel, and you distantly hear someone talking. A man, it sounds like, voice pitched low and blurry in your frozen ears. Hands close around your elbows, tugging you to your feet, and you go. Letting yourself be guided up a steel step and through an open truck door and onto a warm leather bench seat. The car door slamming beside you makes you flinch through the fog, and soon the driver’s side door opens and shuts and you feel the presence of a body on the seat next to you.

You hear some more talking and then the seat below you quivers as the engine revs and the truck set into motion. You slide in your seat as the car turns out of the lot and onto the road, head thunking onto the glass of the passenger window. Out of the frigid air and howling wind, your ears are ringing. You start to shiver after a few long minutes, full-bodied, teeth chattering shivers that wrack your entire body, and you groan in relief at the feeling.

Your senses come back to you slowly, one at a time. Sound first, your brain slowly turning as it catalogues the whirr of the heat blasting through the vents, the soft, distant din of talk radio. Feel comes back with painful pin pricks and television static in your veins as you flex your fingers and toes, hoping desperately that you won’t lose them. Wondering what color they are in the darkness of the truck cab and too afraid to check.

An hour passes, maybe two as your brain slowly rolls in your skull. Tries to remember which direction is up. Struggling to recall what state you’re in, what highway you’re on. Whose truck you’ve gotten into.

It is dark in the cab, lit only by the soft glow of the headlights out on the road and the backlight of the dials on the dash. The person driving, the man, is hidden in shadow in the driver’s seat.

You allow yourself one stupid moment of hope, scenting the air, suddenly desperate. Hoping that it’s Thor. That he came back for you and scooped you up and saved you.

But your sense of smell comes back online like a switch is flipped and you recoil, jamming yourself reflexively back into your seat. Into the hard crevice between the seat and the door.

It’s not Thor. Thor smelled like body-warmed sheets and the earth after a thunderstorm. This man...this alpha, his scent has an acrid quality. One that’s harsh on your cold nose, makes you wrinkle your nose and rub at it. Thor had smelled like coming home. This alpha smells like a hospital room.

You slowly pick yourself up, scooting to sit more naturally on the seat, eyes trained hard on the man across the cab. Through your chattering teeth, you manage to speak. “T-thank you. For picking me up.”

The man shifts in his seat, bringing him into the soft green glow from the dials. You can’t make out much - just that he’s male and maybe in his forties and that his expression is entirely flat as he stares out the windshield. “No need to thank me,” he says. “I’m not in the business of charity.” His voice is raspy in a way that makes you think of cigarette smoke.

Something is causing your stomach to turn and sour, though you don’t know if it’s the near-death experience or the time since you last ate or the sting of his scent as it settles all around you. You swallow tightly, shivering past a wave of nausea. “I...I just mean, I don’t have any way of paying you.” A sudden need to be very clear about that tightens up your spine. “So I want to thank you for your kindness. I can get out of your hair at the next stop now that I’m warmed up.”

You’re not warmed up, not really yet, but the cold doesn’t seem as frightening now.

He chuckles, low and without humor, and you feel goosebumps prickle down your arms. “I’m sure we can figure something out,” is all he says, eyes never leaving the road.

Your heart is thudding so hard in your chest that it makes your lungs feel tight. You stare at the side of the man’s face, then out to the road ahead. It’s pitch black outside, frosty road lit only by the twin headlights of the truck. Flurries swirl around the tires and up past the windows and you realize you haven’t seen another car on the road since you opened your eyes.

You know you’re dumping off fear scent, know that you’re clouding up the cab with it, unable to stop the anxiety that’s starting to grip around your throat. That he feels no need to assuage you provides you no comfort.

As your body warms, slowly returning back to a living temperature, so do your clothes. The first warm wisps of Thor smell tickle your nose and you bury your nose into the collar of the flannel reflexively. Breathing in deep the spicy musk that’s buried deep in the fabric, feeling the profile of the smell cover you like a blanket, softening the sharpened edges of your worry.

Across the cab, you feel rather than see when the smell hits him. His hand shifts its grip on the steering wheel.

“Take that off,” he says.

Your fingers clutch into the flannel. “What?”

His scent sharpens like a blade in the air of the cab. Growing caustic. Making your throat ache with every intake of breath.

“You’re stinking up my cab,” he grits through his teeth, eyes cutting across to you. “Take that off.”

Stupidly, you clutch the shirt tighter around your shoulders and say, “No.”

You should have probably predicted what comes next.

Hard hands dart across the space and latch onto the collar of the shirt, yanking you down and smacking your forehead against the center console. You scream, flailing on the seat, trying to pull away. His fist in the collar of the shirt yanks again and rips the shirt from your shoulders, taking a clump of your hair with it.

You whine and press yourself against the passenger side door, feeling at your burning scalp where he’d pulled hair out at the root. Wind screams through the cab, making you slam your hands over your ears as he rolls down his window and throws the shirt out of it. You hear it distantly thump against the side of his trailer before he turns and looks expectantly at you, hand that’s not on the wheel outstretched. In the low green light from the dash controls, his expression reads like murder.

Trembling, you pull the scarf from around your neck and tug the gloves from your hands, catching one final whiff of the comfort in them before handing them over to him. He throws them from the window too.

The silence that replaces the howling of the wind when he rolls his window back up is deafening.

“Stupid,” he mutters, eyes going back to the road. “Coming into my truck reeking of another alpha.”

Tears are hot on your cheeks as you press yourself against the passenger door. Shaking like a leaf, wrapping your arms tightly around your waist.

“Please just let me out at the next stop,” you whisper.

The dark silence that falls between you lets you know he intends to do no such thing.

 

 

The sun comes up slowly, a watery pale thing in a cold gray sky that offers no warmth as it casts glow across the interior of the truck.

You’re still pressed against the door of the truck, muscles gone trembly and exhausted with the effort of holding yourself there for hours. Your neck aches in a hot, dark scratch from his hands on Thor’s shirt, where he wrenched it from you.

In the light of day, he looks...ordinary. Like any man you’d see in a crowd and think nothing of.

He hasn’t looked at you much in the last few hours, even when you’ve tried and failed to strike up conversation in a desperate attempt to humanize yourself to him. Somehow, that he won’t look at you terrifies you more than the alternative. Makes your mind spin in circles on frantic thoughts of what he intends to do with you.

He speaks, finally, when he turns on his blinker and looks over you to the rearview mirror on your side of the truck to change lanes. Up ahead, a blue sign with an arrow indicates an exit with a gas station and a convenience store and deli.

“You’re going to stay in the truck,” he says.

Bile rises in your throat. “Please,” you whisper, and his eyes cut to you across the cab, hard.

“Causing trouble will not end well for you.”

A muted sob erupts in your chest and you swallow it down, feeling your muscles start to tremble with terror.

He holds your gaze with a hard stare. “Do you understand?”

You nod, swallowing around the dry lump in your throat, trying to keep exhausted tears from falling. Knowing, somehow, that it will make him angry.

He pulls the truck up the exit and into the lot, maneuvering carefully to align the truck up to refuel. Once in place, he turns the key back in the ignition and pulls them out, pocketing them with a lingering look at you that you don’t return.

He pulls on the driver door handle and swings the door open, stepping down into the cold outside and slamming the door behind him.

The locks on the doors switch down, echoing loudly in the quiet.

You take a shuddering breath and force yourself to look at your surroundings. The rest stop is somewhere between busy and abandoned, with a few cars and trucks pulling in and out to fill up or grab breakfast.

You scan frantically for anyone that will see you in the cab. That you can signal to for help in some way.

There’s no one. The few people milling about are hustling to get into the convenience store or back to their trucks, trying to escape the cold wind.

You draw in another deep breath to steady yourself and the burn of his scent nearly makes you wretch. You know, all at once, that you cannot let him take you from this place.

You look over through the driver door window and see the top of his baseball cap where he’s fueling the truck. You don’t have long.

You try the handle of the door but it won’t budge. Your eyes fall to the lock, up near the window. It’s an old one, a hard plastic stick with a disc at the end, like a golf tee. You grip it in your fingers and yank.

It wobbles in your hand. Biting your lip hard enough to split it, you yank again, a frantic sound coming from you, and then, after a long moment, it gives under the pressure.

A loud, mechanic click echoes as the locks in the truck switch up and open.

You see the top of his head turn, sudden, sharp, and there’s no time. No time at all.

You grab the door handle and shove with all of your might and weight.

The door swings open beneath you and you fall. Its several feet from the passenger seat to the ground and you land hard on your hands and knees, slamming onto the concrete, knocking the breath out of your lungs.

You hear him on the other side of the truck, hear the sharp intake of his breath, and you shove yourself to your feet and run.

His voice booms across the lot behind you, ordering you to STOP and the strength of the alpha in his voice almost locks your knees up. Your feet stutter, crashing down to one knee and slicing open your leggings on the harsh ridge of the asphalt.

Footsteps thunder on the ground behind you and you cry out, a desperate whine, and push yourself up and forward. Reaching for the door to the convenience store and yanking it open.

Your heart is in your throat, thundering in your ears as the warmth of the air inside the store washes over you. You’re blind with panic, stumbling, helplessly aware that the only thing that will stop this man from dragging you out of the store by your hair is another alpha.

The store is crowded with truckers needing their morning coffee, and everyone turns and stares as you crash inside, gasping for air. Spots cloud your vision and you sway on your feet, reaching out and grabbing onto display for chips and popcorn, knocking some to the ground and popping them under your unsteady feet.

The smell hits you like a freight train, enveloping your senses like a warm blanket, and you turn, looking, desperate.

Two aisles down, footsteps slam on tile, and when you look you see him.

Thor.

A disposable coffee cup is crushed in his hand, steaming coffee dripping all over the ground. Lips parted on rattling breaths, his eyes completely dark and feral as they lock onto yours.

He moves to you and you reach for him, lurching forward in halting steps. His hands come up to hold your face as he steps into your space, towering over you as he pulls you close. His eyes search yours, electric blue under the fluorescent light. His scent is overwhelming, a warm heady flavor that weakens your knees, makes your head loll between his hands.

“What happened - ” he’s asking, angry, his lips nearly on yours, when the store door slams on its hinges.

Thor’s hands are rough when they grab you, shoving you behind him and widening his stance.

He roars, teeth bared, and you feel it like a swelling wave in your chest, pushing all of the air out of your lungs.

Your knees do give then, and you stumble back, falling to the ground and collapsing back against some shelves. Your vision is swirling and you let your head thunk back against a shelf, knocking over a box of Milk Duds.

There is a fight occurring near the door but you can't track it. Can only feel the heady aura of two alphas clashing that’s flooding through your veins and drugging you. It’s hitting you all at once, the trauma of the last night. The near death experience and then terrorizing drive through the night and your complete lack of food and sleep since you can remember.

You groan as you start to fade in and out, fingers twitching on the tiled floor for him. For Thor.

Time starts to slip between your fingers and you try to fight back tears that are filling your eyes and spilling down your cheeks. Completely and utterly powerless. Entirely at the mercy of the alphas that are circling each other by the door of store.

Your vision clouds with tears and then goes dark, body trembling and giving in to the stress that’s pressing down on your chest like an anvil.

 

 

Hands on your face rouse you a little, pulling you back from the dark, and your senses warm on the scent of Thor. Your chest rattles on a quiet sob, relieved beyond measure.

Soft, rumbling comforts are whispered against your temple and you feel yourself go weightless as you’re scooped up and lifted into the air. Your fingers touch at him, feeling the tight strength of his arms, his chest, before fisting into his shirt. Your eyes are still pinched shut, unseeing, but your nose roots around for him, rubbing hard against his pectoral muscle, opening your mouth against the fabric and breathing in the heady drag of his scent to the back of your throat.

You feel warm air tug at your skin, all prickled up with goosebumps as he carries you. You lean heavily against him when he sets you down, feeling cold porcelain below you.

You blink your eyes open with some effort but the rough scrape of his beard against your cheek drops them closed again as you keen softly and lean into him. Pulled into him like a current.

Your senses slowly come back to you as your heart rate comes down. When you blink past the tears in your eyes, you see you’re in a small bathroom. Sitting on the lone toilet, leaning heavily against Thor’s body.

He’s kneeling between your legs and holding you up, one hand holding some soaked, cool paper towels to the back of your neck, the other gently gripping your chin as he rubs his beard back and forth over the skin of your cheek and your neck. Scenting you with calm, rumbling sounds.

Your voice breaks on his name and he pulls back to look at you. His eyes are nearly black, irises just thin blue rings around his pupils.

Fresh tears threaten to spill down your cheeks as your mouth contorts in a frown, overwhelmed, and he murmurs, “Oh pup,” as he wraps an arm low around your waist and pulls you to him.

You curl your arms around his neck and cling to him, reveling in his strength and warmth and stability. He goes back to scenting you, scraping his beard along the exposed skin of your collarbone, and you shiver, clutching him closer. Wanting him to consume you whole.

“Thor,” you whimper and he soothes you with the press of his lips to the corner of your jaw. Whispers, “I’m here, I’m here. I have you,” against the sensitive skin there.

He’s dumping off calming pheromones, you realize. It’s the reason you feel like you’re floating, like you’re getting a contact high from breathing against the skin of his neck. Like you’re wrapped in a warm blanket straight out of the dryer that smells like safety and comfort and home.

You finally pull back again after a few minutes, your heartbeat finally slowing and syncing with his. His hand comes up to cradle your jaw, thumb brushing tears from your cheeks.

“Are you okay?” you ask, voice coming out a squeak.

His brow twists, thumb stilling on your cheek.

You swallow past the heavy lump in your throat, feeling your cheeks start to burn under the intensity of his gaze. “You-you fought him, right? You...you’re not hurt?”

A smile breaks over his face at that, a quiet laugh rumbling out of his chest, and it makes your breath stall out in your chest.

“I’m not hurt, pup,” he says, touching his forehead gently to yours before pulling back. Still smiling at you with crinkles around his eyes.

“But you fought him?” Your hand falls to his wrist, curling around the warm skin there. Grounding yourself with his strength.

He nods, smile fading softly. “I did.”

Your other hand comes up to his face, fingers digging into the dark scratch of his beard. He rumbles at the touch. “Why?” you ask.

His eyebrows draw again, a quiet, confused line. He pauses for a moment before answering. “You needed me.”

Your fingers bury into his beard and you watch as his eyes drift closed and then back open. The blue of his irises starting to bleed back. “You don’t even know me.”

He considers that for a moment, bobbing his head a little, eyes more somber when they fall back to yours. “I had to,” he explains softly. “As soon as you came through the door, I could sense you. I could hear your heartbeat. I...could smell your fear.”

“Oh,” you whisper, sighing as he scents you again, settling closer to you between your knees.

“I had to. I had no choice. I...had to…” his voice trails off, like he’s struggling to explain his thoughts. “The look on your face…” His nostrils flare a little and you feel his jaw tighten under your fingertips at the memory. “I had to protect you, pup.”

You touch at one of the loose tendrils of his hair with soft fingers, lips twitching nervously. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

His eyes search yours as he pulls the damp paper towels from your neck and tosses them across the room into the trash.

“Are you?” he asks. “He didn’t…” He tilts your jaw, eyes zeroing in on the long scratch on your neck. He breathes slowly through his nose, touching at the scratch. “He didn’t bite you?” he asks, voice gone a little tight.

“No,” you say, shaking your head. “He just…” Thor’s eyes are turning darker and you reach out and place the flat of your palm on his sternum, over the hard thump of his heart. “He didn’t bite me,” you confirm. Wanting to soothe him.

“Good,” he grunts softly, leaning forward to scent you once more, nudging his nose against the shell of your ear.

Something seems to occur to him, and he blinks his eyes open. He pulls back suddenly, drawing his warmth and spice away with him. Concern tightens his brow and it makes you want to wipe it away under your hand. “Is this okay?”

The thought of him leaving you bottoms out your stomach. “Yes,” you rush out, bumping your nose against his. Leaning into him, breathing him in. “Yes, Thor.”

He exhales softly at that, openly relieved, his hand curling gently around your jaw. “Okay. Okay.”

A knock sounds on the door, echoing off the tile and making you startle under Thor’s hand.

“Are you okay in there?” calls a voice. “Do you need me to call someone?”

Thor leans back on his heels. “No, we’ll be out soon,” he calls. His chest vibrates under the flat of your palm and you barely resist curling your fingers in the collar of his jacket.

When he turns back to you, his expression is impossibly soft, lips turning up in a little smile. “What do you want to do, pup?” he asks. No urgency to his voice at all. So patient with you.

The answer comes to you before you even think about it. “I want to go with you.” 

His chest rumbles happily, eyes crinkling. His thumb soothes over your cheek again. “If you’re sure.”

You lean into his hand. “You - ...is that okay? Would that be okay?” You have nothing to offer him. You can’t imagine why he’d want you. Why he’d open up his truck and his life and his time to you.

His blinks and his eyes darken a shade. “It would be more than okay, pup.”

His hands are gentle as they fall to your lap, rubbing soothingly over the tops of your knees. His palm catches on a tear in your leggings and the scratch underneath and you twitch away on a soft whimper.

A rumbly growl curls in his throat but he stands, looking away from you as he does. Rubbing his hand over his mouth and beard before extending his hand to you. When he meets your eyes again, he’s smiling softly, a little tension around his eyes. “Are you ready?”

You take his hand and let him pull you to your feet, swaying against his chest and indulgently nosing at the heady scent emanating from it.

 

 

The store has returned to normal when you exit the bathroom and you feel a pang of guilt when you see the cashier hunched over, putting fallen product back on shelves.

Thor’s hand closes around yours, warm and dry, and you find yourself huddling to his side.

Your eyes cast nervously around the room. The other alpha’s scent is still here, faint, but still stinging at your nostrils. Enough of it lingering in the air to make your stomach twist up.

“It’s alright, pup,” Thor murmurs, reading your thoughts. He squeezes your hand. “He’s gone.”

He leads you through the store, slowing to look over the packaged food lining the aisles and coming to a stop before the gurgling coffee maker.

A smile turns his lips on a soft chuckle and he looks at you with eyes like the summer sky. “I spilled my coffee,” he says, “earlier.”

You smile back at him, unable to stop yourself, but his face stills on a thought.

“Are you hungry?” he asks, looking down at you over his shoulder.

Anxiety pings in your skull like a rung bell.

“Uhhhm,” you say after a moment's pause, eloquently, mouth opening and closing silently.

Yes. You’re starving. But you don’t have any money.

“I - I’m okay.”

He frowns and turns to face you more fully. His hand not covering yours comes up to brush the backs of his knuckles down your cheek, just a breath of a touch. “When did you last eat, pup?”

A lie springs to the tip of your tongue but your mouth shuts quickly at the look on his face. Suddenly so very serious.

You let out a measured breath and force yourself to meet his gaze. “I...could eat. I guess.”

He nods slowly. “Okay. Good.”

He moves to reach for the stack of coffee cups and your hand landing on his bicep stops him. You feel a flush trickle across the bridge of your nose as he turns back to you, curving over you.

“I don’t...have any money.” It comes out of your mouth haltingly, like he pulled it from you with pliers. “I can’t pay you.” Saying those words again makes a wave of nausea swirl low in your gut on the memory.

You want to bury your face in his jacket sleeve, nerves jumbling up in your stomach, but a soft smile warms his face.

“Pup,” he murmurs around what might be a fond grin, shaking his head. “You don’t have to. I’d never ask you to.”

You’re frozen where you’re standing but he brings your hand up to his mouth and presses a scratchy kiss to the back of your palm before releasing it.

“Go,” he says, nodding out at the store. “Get whatever you want. I’m going to get some coffee and some supplies.”

The contented rumble of his voice warms you like a shot of brandy, starting in your lungs and trickling down your arms. When you don’t move, he smiles fully, showing straight, white teeth, and nudges you with his arm. Teasing and gentle.

“Whatever you want, pup. Go ahead.”

You leave then, quickly turning and moving down the aisle, because tears are starting to prick at your eyes and you don’t want him to see. Your stomach flips, growling angrily at the sudden prospect of a meal, and you pat it with the palm of your hand as you go to the refrigerator section. Inside, an assortment of bruised fruits catches your eye, and your stomach rumbles again.

You meet Thor at the checkout counter a few minutes later, arms full of fruit and a bottle of iced coffee in your hand. You approach slowly, still unsure, but he nearly beams when you carefully dump everything on the counter.

“Good girl,” he murmurs quietly as he sets down a steaming coffee cup and a wax paper-wrapped, greasy breakfast sandwich. He produces a few first aid items too, some antiseptic wipes and bandaids, and then he’s fishing into the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet.

He pays with cash and asks for a bag, looking down over you as he puts his wallet back in his pocket. His eyes stay on you as you follow him to the door, deep in thought.

At the door, he pauses and hands you the plastic bag, looping the handles over your palm. He shrugs out of his canvas jacket in one smooth motion and pulls at the zipper of the black hoodie underneath. You blink slowly into the waves of spice coming off of him as he disrobes, licking your lips and tasting him there.

When he holds the hoodie out to you, you look at it, then back up to his face. Stupid, like you seem to always be around him.

Thor presses it gently against your chest when you don’t take it from his hand. “It’s cold out there, pup,” he says. “I won’t have you freeze on me.”

He takes the bag back from you and shrugs back into his canvas jacket, watching you closely as you cave and stuff your arms into the sleeves and zip it up to your chin. Like the other shirt he gave you, it’s absurdly oversized.

He smiles at you, bottom lip tucking into his teeth a little as he reaches to you and tugs the hood up over your head and down over your face. You shake your head back and forth a few times to work the hoodie back so it’s not covering your eyes, and the look on his face when his face comes back into view nearly takes your breath away.

He shakes his head at you, trying to bite back a smile that’s taking over his face. “God,” he murmurs. He brings his hand to your face and strokes the backs of his knuckles down your cheek. Looking like he wants desperately to say something but is stopping himself.

“What?” you ask, smiling too, but he’s shaking his head and chuckling under his breath before you even get the word out.

“Nothing, pup,” he says, chuckling, pushing open the door open for you.

The air that rushes past you through the open door is frigid but you hardly feel it, drawn like a moth to the heat of him as he takes your hand in his and leads you to his truck.

 

 

He helps you with a guiding hand as you climb into the passenger side of his cab, closing the door carefully behind you. You tug the sleeves of his hoodie over your cold fingers and watch as he moves around the front of the truck before pulling open the driver’s door and climbing up himself.

He leans in and starts the truck, his broad shoulders taking up all the room in the cab. His forehead creases as he leans into your space and fiddles with the climate control, turning the fan on high and cranking the temperature all the way up. He turns all of the vents to face you and you shiver as the first puffs of stale air wash over your face.

“Feel free to - “ he gestures vaguely at the controls as he takes a look around the cab, grabbing at an empty plastic bag and stuffing an empty water bottle and candy bar wrapper into it and setting the bag full of food from the store onto the armrest next to you. He puts his coffee in a cup holder on the driver’s door, still steaming.

He’s about to step back down out of the truck when he pauses. His eyes fall to where you’ve burrowed deep in the neck of the hoodie.

He exhales softly. Thoughtful as his eyes find yours. “You okay pup?” he asks.

You nod, your lips curling around the metal bracket of the the zipper, your mouth filling with saliva at the taste of him on it. The whole cab smells of him, a quiet, earthy flavor that makes your eyelids feel heavy as you breathe it in.

His lips turn up on a smile that looks just this side of sad. “Okay. I’m going to fill up. Make yourself comfortable.”

With that, he swings down out of the cab and to the ground, shutting the door behind him. He disappears from view and you let your eyes trail around the interior of the cab, blinking against sleep that’s thickening up the blood in your veins like a drug.

His truck isn’t the newest model but it’s clean and cozy. Lived-in in a way that seems homey instead of worn down. There are two captains seats, one for the passenger and one for the driver, with a wide armrest between that looks like it unfolds into a third seat if needed, or, back folds back out of the way to create a path to the back of the cab. The leather is buttery soft from use under your fingertips and and you wonder suddenly how long he’s been doing this. Driving across the county in this truck. Wondering how often he does it alone.

You tap the power button on the dash and the radio turns on, the soft, warbling sounds of a female singing flowing from tinny speakers. Your brow twists as you listen for a moment before a smile breaks out over your face that you cover with your hand.

He listens to oldies, apparently, and your heart does a strange flip at the realization. Feeling a spark of warmth deep in your belly as the woman on the radio croons.

He’s back after a few minutes, climbing into the driver’s seat and shutting the door behind him. His ears are tipped red from the cold, cheeks a little ruddy where they disappear under his beard.

He smiles when he looks over at you, but his eyes are somber. He places his hands on the steering wheel and twists them, watching them as the leather creaks under his hands, before returning them to his lap.

He turns back to you, eyes the color of the sky in the morning light. Thinking, clearly.

“Pup,” he says. Slowly, like he’s thought a lot about it. “I want you to know that I’ll let you out anywhere you ask, okay?”

You nod, knowing this. Knowing deep in your core that you trust him entirely for reasons you can’t articulate. “Okay.”

He shifts in his seat and his hand comes out to touch at your knee, fingertips grazing your skin where your leggings have ripped. “Anywhere, okay? I’m not keeping you here.”

You nod again. “I know,” you say. You reach for him and let your hand cover his, curling around the strength of his fingers. I trust you.

He won’t hurt you. You know this as surely as you know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. How you know this, you don’t know, but you do.

He squeezes your hand and gives you another small, somber smile. “We’re headed west.”

“West,” you repeat, and he nods, giving your hand another squeeze before pulling his back to himself.

He shifts to get comfortable in his seat and puts the truck in gear. The rumble of the engine beneath your seat makes you sigh, letting your head lean back against the headrest. You turn your head to watch him as he pulls out of the lot and onto the highway. Taking in the strength of his jaw, the soft creases in the skin under his eyes. The dark fan of his lashes against his cheeks as he blinks into the sun.

He brings the truck up to speed on the highway and turns on cruise control, his legs spreading as he settles into what must be his usual routine. He fishes into the bag on the armrest and comes up with the breakfast sandwich he bought. He unwraps it with one hand, one hand kept loosely at the base of the steering wheel and your eyes go to the hinge of his jaw as he takes a bite and chews.

You must zone out because when you blink you realize he’s watching you, lips curling quizzically as he chews. He nods to the bag between you. “Eat up,” he says after he swallows.

His bottom lip is shiny with grease and it makes you suck yours between your teeth.

Looking down, you pull out the two apples and banana from the store. You take a hard bite from the first apple, green and tart, and your mouth waters as you grunt in quiet satisfaction. Your first meal in a long while.

He watches you from the corner of his eye as you eat, polishing off the first apple and then the banana faster than is polite. You slow on the second apple, taking more measured bites as your stomach grumbles queasily around the sudden influx of food. You blink back sleep between tastes, feeling your head nodding to your chest before you pull yourself back awake.

He sighs. A quiet, thoughtful sound as he looks out the windshield. “You’re tired.” 

You take a nibbling bite of the apple. This one is red and a little mealy, but still sweet. You hold it between your palms and suck gently at the juice that drips down the skin.

“I...didn’t really sleep last night,” you confess quietly, staring at the apple. Picking at it with your fingernail.

He sighs again, sounding tired himself. “I figured,” he murmurs. He shakes his head and scrubs his hand over his beard. A whiff of his scent comes over you, touching your cheeks like a caress, and you can smell his stress in it. The quiet worry for you he’s carrying in his shoulders.

He glances over at you and then back at the road. “Sleep, pup. It’s okay.”

You blink heavily, letting your face turn towards him again.

“It’s rude to sleep when someone else is driving.” Your mom taught you that when you were little. If you were in the front seat during a road trip, you had to be awake to keep the driver company.

The side of his mouth twitches up at that. “I drive for a living, pup,” he says. “I’m used to only having the radio to keep me company.”

You bite back a yawn, jaw aching as you try to hide it behind your hand. The scent of him is all around you, permeating every surface in the cab, and it’s settled around you like a warm blanket. You wonder if you could keep your eyes open much longer even if you wanted to.

“Please,” he says, voice dropping to a soft rumble. “It’s okay. Close your eyes, pup. I’ll wake you when we stop for lunch. You need to rest.”

Like he willed it, a wave of fatigue settles over you like a fog, and your eyes start to droop. You blink slowly and lick your lips. You stop fighting it. You let your chin fall to your chest.

“Thor,” you murmur, fingers tangling in the warm sleeves of his hoodie.

You barely make out his murmured response as your brain gives in to the push pull of exhaustion.

“I’m here, pup. I’m here.”

 

 

Waking is a slow, luxurious thing. You’re unaccustomed to it, blinking slowly into consciousness, being in no hurry at all. Warm and comforted and safe feeling.

Your eyes flutter and you let out an unconscious sigh. You’re leaning against the door, head propped up against the window and feet curled up on the seat beneath you. You push yourself upright slowly, pushing the hood back from your face.

The sun is nearing the horizon and it takes a moment or two for your brain to calculate what that means.

To your left, Thor is sprawled in the driver’s seat, holding the steering wheel with a loose thumb and forefinger at the bottom of the wheel. He looks over at you and smiles warmly.

You rub at your face. Mind sluggish as it fends off the vestiges of sleep. “How long did I sleep?”

Thor inclines his head. “About ten hours.”

Your mouth drops open, muted sounds of protest spilling out. “What?”

He shrugs. “It’s alright,” he says, seeing the look on your face. In the light of the setting sun, everything about him glows gold.

“You just drove in silence for ten whole hours while I slept?”

His eyebrows crinkle as he smiles at you. Like you’re being kind of ridiculous. “Yeah, of course.”

You lean back against the seat and consider that. Wondering where you are now. The landscape looks the same, still rolling, flat plains as far as the eye can see, but you know you must be a state over, at least.

You slide your feet out from under you and rest them on the floor, stretching your arms up over your head and feeling your bones crack. You’re loath to admit it, but you feel renewed.

“Did you stop for lunch?” you ask.

“No,” he says, fingers drumming softly against the wheel. “You needed to rest.”

“You must be starving,” you murmur, wondering. Taking in the size of him. Imagining how much and how often he must have to eat.

You don’t mean to say it out loud but you must have because a grin spreads across his face as he looks out the windshield.

“You think I’m big?” he asks.

Mortification flares in your belly. Your cheeks flush red and you scrub at them with your hands.

“You are big,” you say, voice deep in your throat. Embarrassed, but his smile is contagious and you find yourself smiling shyly back at him anyway.

He hums at that, a contented little sound that warms you to your toes.

After a few moments of silence, he asks, “How do you feel?”

You consider that, fingers reflexively touching at the scratch on your neck. It’s not yet scabbed and your fingertips come away watery and pink in the golden light. “Good,” you say, honestly, but he’s looking away from you pointedly and rubbing his hand over his mouth.

“Good,” he replies, voice soft in the air between you. His eyes cast over to you. “We’re not far from a restaurant. Could you eat?”

You slip your hands into the hoodie pickets and touch at your stomach. You nod. “I could,” you say. Fighting down the reflex to lie and say you’re not hungry. Knowing he wouldn’t want you to.

“Good, me too,” he says. “You’re right, I’m starving.”

 

 

He’s very quiet for the next few miles. Not angry, you don’t think, but unhappy in a quiet sort of way that twists his mouth into a grim line and makes him keep rubbing his hand over his chin.

You can smell it on him in the small space of the cab. A whispy note of tension layering through the usual musk. It makes you want to crawl across the cab and into his lap. It makes you want to make him rumble and purr and feel better.

But he pulls off on an exit soon enough, taking a right turn and then a left, pulling into an expansive concrete parking lot. You look out the window and see a diner, small and intimate with patchy shingles and a flashing “Open” sign in the front window. There are a few other trucks in the lot but not many.

The engine dies with a rumble and he climbs down with a grace that comes with bone-deep familiarity with the motion. He’s at your door and opening it before you’ve unbuckled your seatbelt and he takes your hand to help you step down to the asphalt. Steadying your shoulders between his hands as you get your feet under you.

A gust of wind slips between you and you shudder, fingers clutching tightly at the long sleeves of the hoodie, and he tugs you close. Fitting you under his arm and steering you towards the entrance. The walk to the door is long enough for your arm to come up around his waist, but inside, he extricates himself from you as he approaches the hostess.

She seats you in a corner booth, one of those big L-shaped ones, and you scoot along the bench until you’re seated next to him, your knee bumping him under the table.

He slides you a menu, tall pieces of paper slipped inside worn plastic sleeves that show faded photographs of breakfast food.

The diner is dimly lit with old fluorescent bulbs and you let yourself watch him as he reads over the menu. He looks tired in the low light, his eyes creasing around the edges as he blinks and reads. You feel a little pang of guilty at that, at having slept the entire day away while he stayed up and kept you on the road.

More than anything, he looks weary.

The waitress appears by your table after a few minutes and takes your orders - Thor ordering a mountain of breakfast food and you ordering the cheapest thing on the menu, a short stack of pancakes. When she takes the menus and leaves, Thor shifts in his seat to look at you.

His eyes are pinched at the corners. His mouth opens, and then closes, like he’s trying to get words out but can’t.

“You’re unhappy,” you say, softly, after a long silence.

He let his eyes drift around the diner, a slow scan of the room, before coming back to you. “I suppose I am,” he murmurs.

You chew on your bottom lip. “Did I - do something…?”

He lets out a breath and his hand closes over your knee. “No, pup,” he says. “No. I’m sorry.”

You shake your head, putting your hand over his. He turns his hand and takes yours, threading his fingers between yours.

He pauses again then, licking his lips and letting his eyes travel around the restaurant again. Mind clearly churning on thoughts he’s struggling to articulate.

You wait and occupy yourself with memorizing the feel of his hand over yours. The size and strength and warmth of his palm, the roughness of the callous there against yours. Trying to be patient. Wanting him to process whatever is weighing him down. Wanting him to smile again.

He sighs quietly, his hand pulsing around yours. When he speaks, his voice is thick in his throat. Like he’s asking a question he doesn’t want to know the answer to.

“What happened to the shirt I gave you?”

Your stomach dips and you look down at the table. Picking at the flaking lacquer with a fingernail. His gaze on you is heavy as he waits.

“I...don’t have it anymore. I’m sorry.”

His hand squeezes yours again, hard enough to shift the bones in your hand. A little desperate.

“What happened?” he asks. His eyebrows have drawn on his face now, expression twisted in naked distress.

You shake your head, setting your jaw stubbornly. Swallowing down emotion that starts to thicken in your chest. Refusing to look at him, knowing you won’t be able to stand the look on his face.

“I’m sorry,” is all you can say.

His hand not holding yours comes up and touches your jaw. Turns your head to face him, fingers curling around your chin. Holding you there until you meet his eyes.

“What did he do to you, pup?” His voice is a whisper, eyes absolutely torn. His eyes fall to the scratch on your neck and it throbs under his gaze.

Your lip quivers against his thumb and he lets out a broken exhale and leans into you. Presses his cheek to yours and tugs you against him.

You go, boneless, and shove your face against his chest, opening your mouth to take in heavy pulls of his scent as he noses his way to your neck and rubs his beard there.

You sit there, both of you scenting each other desperately, rubbing your faces against the other, breathing open-mouthed and damp in the quiet diner. Both reeking of stress and exuding calming pheromones to comfort the other in a dizzying whirlwind that makes your eyes start to roll back into your head, overwhelmed.

“I shouldn’t have left you,” he whispers into the skin of your neck. “I shouldn’t have left you there.” The drag of his lips against your skin makes you shudder and cling to him, setting your teeth instinctually against the hard muscle of his chest, against the soft cotton of his shirt.

You lose track of time at the press of his mouth to your neck, the scrape of his beard there, at the thick draw of his scent, warm and cloying and safe. He’s faring no better, his breath coming a little fast, a little strained as he holds you close to him.

The sound of plates on the table makes you startle and pull back. You’re painfully aware of the ruddiness of your cheeks and the sweat gathering at your hairline as you give the waitress an apologetic smile, forcing Thor back with a firm hand on his chest when he follows you with his mouth.

The waitress doesn’t even react, just puts down your plates of food and tops off your water glasses like she didn’t come upon you practically snogging in the booth. It makes some hysterical, distant part of you wonder what she must see on a daily basis for this to give her no pause. Hookers, probably.

Thor finally pulls back and blinks as the cool air of the diner washes over his flushed face. His pupils are blown out, eyes nearly all black. Your hand still planted on his chest is the only thing that keeps him from leaning back into you.

“Look,” you say, giving an exaggerated nod to the table. Smiling in spite of yourself, feeling your heart thudding hard in your chest. “Food.”

He blinks and his eyes clear a little as he sees the plates. “Oh,” he says, blinking again. “Okay, good.”

He extricates himself from you with care, sitting upright in the booth and picking up a fork, looking back over at you like he wants to scent you again. Like he’s barely stopping himself from laying you down on the booth bench and covering you with his body.

You snatch up a fork and rip a bite of pancake off, jamming it into your mouth and chewing. Anything to distract from the hot flare low in your belly that has your gut clenching around nothing.

He redirects onto the food after a moment’s pause, slicing into sunny side up eggs with his fork and mopping up the yolk with a piece of sourdough toast. Keeping his eye on you even as he digs in and takes heaping bites.

You focus on your pancakes to take your mind off the heat prickling the back of your neck, smearing them in butter and syrup. The rush of sweet on your tongue stuns you after the first few bites. You chew slowly, cataloguing the flavor. Feeling the tingle of sugar as it goes to your belly and trickles through your veins. You’ve been scrounging for so long, eating whatever you can get your hands on, that the indulgence of hot breakfast food instead of bagged chips or cold pizza overwhelms you a little.

You feel the impulse to tell Thor this. To admit to him where you’ve been and how far you’ve fallen. You think you will, someday.

You finish your plate fast enough to make your stomach ache, using your fork to scrape up the lingering pools of syrup. Beside you, Thor is eating with utilitarian efficiency, still glancing at you between bites of egg and bacon.

When he notices your empty plate, he scoots his over to yours and pushes some of his food onto it. You open your mouth to protest but he makes a disapproving sound with his mouth so you shut it, biting your lip to hold back a smile.

It’s not long until both of your plates are scraped clean. Thor leans back in the booth, groaning a little, turning his head to look at you.

His hand comes up and touches at a sticky patch of syrup on your bottom lip, eyes going a little distant as your lip sticks to the pad of his thumb and moves with it.

You chase his thumb with your tongue, catching it and tasting the salt there. You smile, cheeks coloring. “I’m so full, Thor. Thank you.”

Thor hmms thoughtfully to himself, thumb still catching on your sticky lip.

He blinks down at you, eyes darkening. His voice is a low rasp when he says, “You’ve got a little…”

Your breath stalls out in your lungs as he leans down and presses his lips to yours. You mouth falls open on a breath and he sucks your lower lip between his, tongue velvet soft against yours. Tasting the sweetness right off of your mouth with hard little pulses of his lips.

When he pulls back, you nearly topple into his lap, only just catching yourself with a planted hand on the seat. Breathing hard against the desire that is gripping at your throat.

“Sorry,” he breathes, blinking down at you, thumb going back to pressing at your mouth, touching the ridges of your teeth, drawing your tongue to it.

“You should,” you swallow heavily, squeezing your thighs together under the table. “You should get me back to the truck.”

He rumbles, a low, hot sound of agreement, and as you crawl around the long bench of the booth, he tosses a wad of cash onto the table. Too much, much more than the meal cost.

His hand closes over yours and he leads you out, nodding to the waitress as you pass her on the way out. He turns to you just before the door and tugs the hoor up over your head, nudging his cheek against yours before shouldering open the door.

The wind outside has picked up, whipping and frigid, and you can’t stop the squeak that rips from your lips as it rushes up under your hoodie and chills you to the bone.

He curls his arm over you and hurries you, walking in long, sure strides to the truck. He unlocks it, pulls open your door, and boosts you inside with a strong hand on your bottom. The door slams shut after you and you take in a shuddering breath, freezing, but out of the wind.

You tug at the drawstrings of your hoodie and tighten it around your face, pulling down the sleeves to cover your fingers. Shivering in the empty cab. The cold is sobering, dousing the arousal that had gripped you minutes before like a bucket of ice water.

It’s gone dark since you’d entered the diner, the sun below the horizon now. It’s not night time, not fully yet, but just on the cusp of twilight. The sky is a dark amber color and fading darker by the minute.

The driver side door doesn’t open, and after a minute or two, you climb over onto the seat there, pressing your face to the window and looking for him. Worrying, senselessly, that some harm has come to him in his walk from your side of the truck to his own. You don’t see him and your heart thuds distantly against your ribs.

You’re leaning on the door to look out so you nearly topple out when the handle turns and it swings suddenly open. You collapse, instead, against Thor, who grunts in surprise and nearly goes over backwards with you before he gets his feet under him and gathers you in his arms, pushing into the cab and depositing you on the passenger seat.

The door shuts behind him, cutting off the screaming wind, and you’re breathing loudly when he fumbles with lights overhead, flipping them on and illuminating the interior of the cab so you can see him clearly.

His hair is all tangled from the wind, even as its tied back at the nape of his neck, and his cheeks and ears are a bright, angry red. He scents the air, just little lift of his nose, and he reaches out for you, soothing a palm over your thigh.

“Sorry, pup,” he says, noting the sting of your worry on the air, “Just had to get my head straight.”

“It’s okay,” you say with a smile. You shudder again, teeth clattering together, and he withdraws his hand, frowning.

“Sorry,” he murmurs again, jamming the key into the ignition and turning. “Should’ve turned it on for you.” He huffs a short laugh, staring at his hands on the steering wheel. Says, almost as if to himself, “I keep trying to care for you, but I’m not doing a very good job.”

“Thor.” You frown, pulling your knees under you and leaning over the armrest. You reach for him, fingers curling around the cold tips of his ears, and he quirks his lips in a contemplative smile when he looks at you. You let your fingers fall to his cool cheeks, to the thick scratch of his beard. “You’ve taken better care of me than anyone. Truly.”

His hand covers yours on his cheek, his fingers warmer than yours. He takes your hand and places it on the armrest between you. Your elbow crinkles the plastic bag still sitting there from this morning, and he nods to himself when his eyes fall to it. Like he’s just remembered something.

He digs through the bag and comes up with little paper squares - antiseptic wipes.

You frown. Those will sting.

“I know,” he says, seeing your face. “Will you let me? Just this once, to make sure you’re all cleaned up.”

Your lower lip juts out and you know you’re being childish. “Okay,” you acquiesce, shifting in your seat to face him.

That seems to placate him and he goes about ripping open a few of the packs, pulling out a thin wipe and unfolding it delicately in his hand. His eyes are shaded under the overhead lamps in the cab but you can see the care there, settled deep in the creases around his eyes.

“Where are you hurt, pup?”

You exhale and try to remember, mind checking off body parts and moving them to feel for aches. Your palms are scraped, from when you fell from the other alpha’s cab. You hold both hands out to him, palms up. He takes your right hand in his, impossibly gentle.

“This will burn,” he says as he wipes at the angry skin. You flinch, but he holds you tight, cleaning your right palm and then moving to your left.

He discards the wipe, pinked with your blood, and pulls out another. “Where else?” he asks. When you take a moment to think about it, he motions for you. “Your knee.”

You make a face, not sure exactly what he wants you to do, but you swing your leg up over the armrest and he takes your ankle gently in hand, guiding your foot to rest in his lap. He examines the rip in your leggings over your knee with a tracing finger before he starts to carefully work the material up your calf, lifting it as he pushes it over your knee so as not to pull at your cuts.

You jump again when he scrubs gently at the scrapes there and he soothes you with quiet mouth sounds, staring intently at the skin as he pulls little pebbles from where they’ve ingrained themselves in blood and torn tissue.

“I know, pup,” he murmurs when you leg leaps between his hands again and you hiss. “Almost done.”

“I’m being a baby,” you whine into the crook of your elbow which you’ve thrown over your face. Knowing that you’re acting like a child but unable to stop yourself when he presses down and your leg jolts again.

He rolls your leggings back down your calf when he’s done, hand warm where it curls again around your ankle. He pats your shin before pushing your leg back to you.

“Just your neck, then,” he says, and motions for you to lean over.

You put your elbows on the arm rest and lean into his space, letting him bracket your chin with his fingers and tilt your head. This close, the dark fan of his lashes is striking, framing blue eyes that remind you of something you’ve long since forgotten. The smell of him sits heavy on your tongue, making your mouth water. 

“It’s not deep,” he says to himself as he trails a finger down your neck parallel to the scratch. His eyes feel like a brand as they appraise your neck and your throat, the core of you pulsing on instinct at an alpha holding you like this, breath hot against your skin. Teeth just inches from making claim.

He pulls back before you can do something stupid like bare your neck further, looking down to pull out another antiseptic wipe. It stinks, a caustic, brittle smell, and both of you wrinkle your noses as he raises it to you neck and presses down.

He seems deep in thought as he carefully scrubs your skin, humming to himself a little in the quiet. You wonder what he’s thinking, so you ask him.

He huffs out a quiet, unhappy noise. “I’m so glad he didn’t bite you, pup.”

That makes your heart thud. “Me too,” you whisper. Picturing it. Being tied to that man for the rest of your life. Drawn to him by your cursed biology while hating him with every inch of your conscious being.

Thor pulls back finally, tossing the used wipe back into the plastic bag. Giving your neck one last lingering look. “Good.”

He touches your cheek once with his fingers, a soft caress, and then he shifts back into his seat. He turns off the overhead light with a tap, bathing you both in darkness.

He puts the truck in gear and lets it ease forward with his foot on the brake, looking over his shoulder to make sure the way is clear as he clears the parking lot and pulls back onto the highway.

“There’s about an hour of driving until we reach a rest stop,” he says, eyes trained out the windshield. “We’ll bed down there for the night.”

You nod, settling back into your seat. Leaning back against the door so you can watch him as he drives. “That sounds good.”

His eyes drift over to you. Smiling.  “Think you’ll be able to sleep?”

You laugh quietly, embarrassed. “You don’t understand my propensity for sleep. If I sit anywhere for longer than thirty minutes I’ll pass out.”

The smile on his face widens. “Great,” he says, on a deep laugh. “You’ll make a great passenger. Good company.”

An easy silence settles down between you and you find yourself smiling as you look out your window at the land flashing by. With the sun down, fatigue is already settling deep in your bones and you know you’ll fall asleep within minutes of bedding down.

Your mind stalls out on that thought, heat prickling at your neck. Wondering if you’ll sleep in your seat, or back in the bed in the rear of the cab with him. You squirm a little, exhaling slowly. Thinking about the smell of his blankets. The sight of him all stretched out on it.

You wonder if he sleeps in bed clothes or without.

You rub your thighs together, feeling achy. Looking out the window to keep from looking at him.

Beside you, you hear the sound of Thor’s hands twisting on the leather of the steering wheel.

You bring your thumb up to your mouth and chew on a cuticle. “Thor?” you ask, sounding a little breathless.

“Yeah?” His eyes are set firmly forward.

“Will you bite me?”

Thor exhales hard through his nose, a ragged noise sounding from deep in his chest. Surprised by the question.

After a beat of heavy silence, you hear the sound of his hand scratching over his mouth and his beard. A burst of spice thickens the air.

His voice is strained and quiet in the dark when he answers. “Only if you ask me to, pup.”

 

 

You must drift off because the sound of the brakes rumbling rouses you, pulling you back to consciousness with a soft nod of your head against your chest.

You blink your eyes open to the dome light flipping on as Thor shifts the truck into park and kills the engine.

He turns to look at you and his lips turn up at the sight of you yawning. “You’re a sleepy pup.”

You nod over your yawn, rubbing your eyes with your fists. “Are we here?”

He nods back, drumming his fingers softly on the steering wheel. “This is where we’ll spend the night.”

You look around and see an empty parking lot. Cracked, old asphalt lit by intermittent, flickering street lights. In the dim light, you see trees surrounding the lot bowing and swaying in a hard wind. You pull the hoodie closer around yourself and shiver.

Thor is quiet for a moment, watching you. Then he clears his throat a little, drawing your attention.

“There’s a bed in the back,” he explains, looking out the windshield. “I sleep there.”

Your heart flutters against your ribs and you gather the sleeves of the hoodie in your palms.

“You can sleep there, if you’d like.” He drums his fingers on the steering wheel again. A nervous habit, you’re realizing. “Or you can sleep up here on the bench. I can make it up for you with blankets and pillows. It’s not as comfortable but I think you’d fit okay. You’re small.” He gives you a little smile then. “I’d offer to, but I don’t fit.”

You smile back, feeling suddenly shy. “No, of course,” you say. It’s his truck. You’d never ask him to do that.  

He spares a glance to the back of the cab and then looks back to you. “There’s a little bathroom back there too. Toothpaste in the cupboard - I might have a new toothbrush in there if you dig. Go ahead and get settled in, okay? I have to hook up the truck and do some other stuff, and I’ll be back.”

You nod, and he takes it as his cue to go. He pushes open the driver door and steps down into the inky night, frigid air rushing in before he slams the door back shut behind him.

Shivering again and biting down against chattering teeth, you lift the center armrest up and out of the way, stepping back into the rear of the cab.

Behind a small entryway is a door on the right, the little half bathroom, and ahead is a bed. It’s big, considering, and takes up the entire space, covered in loose bedding and full of assorted pillows. It’s lit by faint in-line lights around the headboard, casting the room in a soft, warm glow. As you fight back another chill, it looks absolutely heavenly.

Determined now, you move with purpose, shouldering your way into the narrow bathroom and looking through the cupboards. You find a half-used tube of toothpaste and then, just like he said, you find a green toothbrush, still in plastic wrap. Your hands nearly tremble as you rip open the packaging and run the brush under the tap - you haven’t brushed your teeth with proper toothpaste and brush in...longer than you’d like to admit.

It’s a simple pleasure that feels like a luxury. As you brush, overly thorough, relishing in the process, you glance around the tiny bathroom and try to picture Thor even fitting through the door.

When you spit into the little sink and rinse your mouth a few minutes later, you feel impossibly renewed.

Thor’s not yet back when you exit the bathroom, and you hem and haw a little in the little hall between the front of the cab and the rear. Unsure of what to do.

You know you’ll be bedding down with him. You’ve known that since the thought of sleeping arrangements had occurred to you earlier that day. But you don’t want to be presumptuous, in case he likes his things a certain way…

When he doesn’t appear in the next minute, you cave and turn to the bed.

The mattress gives under the pressure of your knees as you crawl onto it and you collapse to it immediately, groaning at the warmth and plush of the blankets under your palms. Burrowing deep under the blankets like a worm in freshly turned dirt, not even bothering to stop the indulgent sounds coming from you.

Everything is soft and warm and smelling of Thor and...safe. The thought makes your throat tighten as you rub your face over one of the pillows that's deeply spiced with his scent. You keep your eyes squeezed shut to keep the sudden prickle of tears in check, and simply breathe.

 

 

The sound of the driver’s door creaking open makes you blink awake. You’ve no idea how much time has passed. Your heart kickstarts nonsensically, hearing the sounds of Thor climbing up into the cab and puttering around.

You hear as he makes his way to the back and listen to the bathroom door open and close, seeing the quick flash of the bathroom light blinking on the far wall of the hallway. You close your eyes and wait, rubbing your face against the pillow again, taking in deep lungfuls of his scent to calm your thundering heart.

He comes out a few minutes later and you wait for the bed to dip under his weight.

It doesn’t, and you dare a glance, cracking your eye open to see if he’s disappeared again. If he decided to try to sleep on the front bench after all.

It’s dark, but you see the clear, hulking shape of him in the doorway of the bedroom. Leaning against the doorframe, face shadowed. Looking at you, all wrapped up in his bed. You can hear his breathing over the quiet hum of the truck, deep and steady.

You’re about to move, unable to take the silence, when he finally shifts on his feet. You watch his shadowed shape tug off his jacket and then toe off his boots. You hear the metal clink of his belt buckle as he works it, and your cheeks heat at the sound.

He pushes down his jeans and steps out of them, leaving all of his clothes on the floor, and then he steps forward and kneels down on the bed.

You hold your breath as the mattress dips under his weight, and you rock like waves on the sea as he settles down next to you on a sigh. He slips under the blankets and the heat of him washes over you, throwing off warmth like a furnace.

You let out a soft sound of longing, fingers twitching to reach out to him, and you hear him grunt softly as he realizes you’re awake.

His arms are as hot as an open flame as he reaches for you and pulls you to him, snugging your back up against the broad of his chest, and you whimper, pathetic and quiet at the press of him behind you. Overwhelmed by his scent and his heat and his strength.

The touch of his nose to the back of your neck makes you moan, breathless and broken-sounding, and the scrape of his beard against your nape makes you shiver and push back against him.

“Pup,” he murmurs, voice heavy and hot against your skin. He presses his lips there and breathes in your scent on a soft rumble, his legs slipping between yours, tangling up in them.

Your hand finds one of his laid over your belly and you draw it up over your chest, to press against the heavy beat of your heart. Binding you to him at your very core, feeling the healthy thud of his heart against your back.

You breathe through another swell of sudden emotion, letting a harsh exhale through your lips. Startled and overwhelmed by the intensity of it. Thinking of where you were not twenty four hours ago - freezing to death, alone, on a rest stop bench. And then, cornered and terrorized by a vicious alpha. Compared to where you are now. Warm and safe. Desired, even.

He noses at the thunder of your pulse in your throat and lays a gentling kiss there. Just a whisper soft press of his lips to soothe you.

The air thickens on heady calming pheromones, the kind that make you feel drugged, and you groan softly with gratitude. You let your head fall back against his shoulder and feel tension unfurl somewhere deep in your chest.

“Thank you,” you murmur, voice cracking. “Thank you.”

He shifts on the bed, settling you firmly against him. Holding you tightly like a swaddled babe.

His voice is a raspy husk when he whispers in your ear, “Sleep, pup.”

The pressure of his arms around you works like an anchor, rooting you in a steady and growing calm that fills in all the spaces where your arousal had fled in the face of fear.

It takes time, several slow and quiet minutes, but you feel your heartbeat slow to sync to his and you bring his hand, still in yours, to your mouth to press a kiss to his knuckles. Throat tight with affection as sleep settles deep in your bones and takes you under.


	2. Chapter 2

Your sleep is deep and dreamless, and you don’t stir an inch until consciousness lights behind your eyelids, sometime early in the morning. The interior of the cab is still dark when your eyes flutter open, just the soft hint of a sunrise peeking around the edges of the drawn blinds. 

Your lips part on an exhale that turns into a soft moan as you register the harsh scrape of Thor’s beard on the back of your neck. Your hand falls to cover his where it’s worked under your shirt and is splayed across your belly, fingers warm and rough on your skin.

He’s pressed along your back, breath fanning hotly across the shell of your ear as he scents you, making soft, contented mouth sounds into the skin of your throat.

“Good morning, pup,” he murmurs, the wet of his lips catching on the skin over your pulse when he feels you stir beneath him.

You let your head tip away from him, baring your neck and curling your toes against his shins. Blissful in his arms as he slowly rubs his jaw back and forth across the nape of your neck.

You sigh his name as you arch against him, lacing your fingers with his over your belly. Warmed to your core and surrounded by the intoxicating, heady scent of his arousal that’s heavy in the blankets that surround you.

His nose bumps against the skin behind your ear. “Did you sleep well?” His voice is a gravelly rumble you can feel against your back.

Your lips part on a soft pant as your head leans back against his shoulder. “Yes.” You groan out a satisfied sound. “ _Thor_.”

The steady rub of his beard against your throat pauses at that and you feel his breath stutter to a stop. His fingers flex gently on your belly, and then he’s pulling away from you on a regretful sound.

You nearly whine, turning to reach for him, but he’s soothing you with firm hands, keeping you down on the mattress as he moves back towards the edge of the bed.

You roll onto your back to stare at him, rubbing your thighs together to soothe the ache between your legs. Swallowing heavily around the flush of saliva in your mouth at the sight of him as he stands from the bed.

His t-shirt is stretched tight over the plane of his chest, bunched up under his arms. Your eyes fall to the swell of his cock in his boxer briefs and a whine tangles up in your throat, quiet and desperate.

He rumbles at you as he rubs a palm over his chest, smiling. “Sorry,” he says, “I got a little carried away.”

The distance dissipates the fog a little, lets your brain come back online with some effort. “Don’t be sorry,” you say, and your cheeks flush at the raw sound of it.

You clear your throat and sit up, pushing yourself up the bed and crossing your arms over your chest to cover your hard-peaked nipples that are brushing against your shirt. You don’t miss the long swallow, the way his adam’s apple bobs in his throat, and he scrubs a hand over his beard.

“I’ll, uh…” he takes a step towards the hallway, and then back. Still half-hard in his boxer shorts as he leans down to the floor and takes his discarded jeans in hand, stepping into them and pulling them up his hips. “I’ll get us ready to go for the morning. Take your time getting up.”

Part of you thinks he’s going to just go stand outside in the cold to get his head straight, and you watch as he does just that. Walking down the narrow hallway, climbing down into the driver’s seat and kicking the door open and dropping down to the ground. Wearing nothing but jeans and a t-shirt even though you hear whistling wind outside when he cracks the door.

Guilt picks at you then, a quiet, sour feeling, and you resolve to be ready for him when he returns. To not distract him further. You pull back on your clothes from yesterday, taking a quick sniff and finding them inoffensive to the nose but only just. You’ll need to wash them soon.

You brush your teeth with utilitarian efficiency in the tiny bathroom and tug a comb through your hair before stepping back out into the hall and making your way up to your seat behind the dash.

Time passes and you’re fiddling with the radio when he finally opens the driver door and he climbs up inside. He shuts the door quickly behind him, cutting off the howling wind as it sings through the cab.

He’s red all over, his forearms and cheeks and ears bright with windburn and chill. He smiles at you as he pushes some of his hair back, but you find yourself frowning and reaching for him. Wrapping your hand around the icy skin of his arm.

“You’re freezing,” you say. “Why didn’t you wear a jacket?”

He waves off your concern. “I’m alright. I run warm. I just had to…” He waves again, another vague gesture, and you hear the unsaid _had to get my head on straight_ in the air between you.

You pull your hand back to your lap. Not wanting to drive him out into the cold again.

“It’s alright,” he says, cocking his head a little. Like he’s reading you and a little confused. He smiles again, disarmingly, and then produces an armful of snack bags. “I got them from the vending machine out front. I think we’re a ways from any other stops.”

You return his smile, feeling a little shy. You reach out and pluck a bag of pretzels from the crook of his arm.

He picks out a bag of chips and inspects it. “I’ll feed you better for lunch, I promise.”

You huff a quiet laugh, pinching the bag on the sides to pull it open. “You fed me breakfast two days in a row. You’re spoiling me.”

Your words hang in the air and you realize you’ve overshared. Thor watches you with guarded eyes, and he make a soft mouth sound when he eventually turns to look out the windshield. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, his mind clearly turning.

“You’re easy to please,” he murmurs, after a long silence. A weak attempt at levity that you grasp onto, wanting to get the somber look off his face.

“You’ve no idea,” you say, raising your eyebrows as you crack a pretzel between your teeth, and he laughs then, soft, but pleased sounding.

“I’ll just clean up back there and we can get going.” He stands and moves back to the hallway, touching your shoulder gently with his knuckles as he passes.

You hear him in the bathroom, brushing his teeth and rustling around. You curl your feet underneath yourself on the seat and look out the windshield, which is starting to fog around the edges.

The trees lining the parking lot are bending in the wind, naked branches rattling and tangling together. You reach out and press your fingers against the frost that’s accumulating on the windshield, zipping his hoodie up right around your neck. You’ll need a thicker jacket for this weather, you think.

He joins you after a few minutes, settling heavily into the driver’s seat. He’s in a fresh t-shirt and his hair is brushed and pulled back neatly. His nose is still pink from the cold when he smiles over at you.

“Where to?” you ask, sucking the salt from a pretzel.

“West again,” he answers, turning the key in the ignition and petting the steering wheel as the truck rumbles to life. “We’ll pass through some towns today so we can make some stops. Break up the drive a little for you.”

You hum, appreciative. “Where are we?”

He looks back over his shoulder as shifts into drive and pulls from the parking lot and onto the deserted highway. “Nebraska.”

You laugh softly, crunching on another pretzel. “No kidding.”

“Hmm?”

You shrug under the glance he throws your way. Tucking a hair behind your ear and letting your mind wander for a moment. “I was born in Nebraska. I didn’t realize I’d made it back.”

You feel his eyes go to the road and then back to you. You hear the scrape of his palm over the bristles of his beard.

He eases the truck up to speed on the highway and turns on cruise control. He shakes his head softly.

“I have so many things I want to ask you, pup.”

You shrug again. Feeling brave.“Ask me.”

It takes him a minute of quiet thought before he does. His voice is soft and purposefully gentle when he asks about you. Where you’re from and where you’ve been. Who has loved you and who has left. Why you’re out here barely scraping by on deserted midwestern highways.

You tell him. Opening up slowly, cautiously, and then all at once. Describing your old home, a place you wouldn’t even recognize anymore. Detailing every member of your family that is gone or lost to you. Finally, you admit how you’ve been surviving, your cheeks burning as you admit to working odd jobs for cash and digging through trash cans for food.

It’s shameful, or should be, but he doesn’t seem to judge. Just makes quiet mouth sounds as he listens to encourage you on. Nodding as he looks out the front of the windshield, his brow twisted in a pensive stare.

Your voice is hoarse when you finally stop talking, nearly an hour later. Scratchy in your throat from the most use it’s seen in months.

You see his eyes linger on a sign that indicates its 20 miles to the next town before switching back out the windshield. Snow is blowing across the road before you, swirling in cloudy flurries that disappear under the truck like smoke.

“How do you handle your heats?”

You’ve flattened the empty pretzel bag against your lap and you start to fold it, if only for something for your hands to do. Your stomach warms on the question, something blooming between your ribs.

“Uh,” you said, chewing on your lip. “There are shelters out there that will take you. If they have the room.”

You’d spent your last two heats in such shelters. Locked into not much more than a utility closet, clawing at the walls and wailing and sweating until the fever passed.

He frowns. “That is...unbelievably unsafe”

You agree on a nod and a shrug. It’s not like you have an abundance of other choices.

“I can’t believe you’ve remained...unclaimed.” He’s choosing his words carefully, eyes trained deliberately out the windshield. “All this time.”

You huff a soft laugh. “I’m not that old, Thor.”

He doesn’t see the humor in it though. You watch his jaw flex beneath his beard. “You don’t know how you smell, pup. You’re not even in heat and I can barely…”

He trails off and scrubs his hand over his mouth again.

“I feel the same about you, you know,” you reply. Voice soft. “I don’t know how you’re alone out here. How you don’t have omegas hanging from every limb.”

He shifts in his seat. Exhales softly, clearly thinking hard.

“I’m thirty-four years old, pup.” Hearing that makes the tips of your ears tinge red, and you don’t know why. “I’ve never smelled anyone like you. Not once.”

“Me neither.”

He looks over at you and silence falls heavy between you. You know what he’s thinking because you’re thinking it too, even though neither of you wants to voice it.

It’s considered by some to be an old wives tale - a romantical notion of something like soul mates. The idea that there is someone out there whose scent will trigger just the right synapses in your brain to make you stupid with it. To make you drunk on their smell even when you’re not in heat or rut.

It’s generally thought of as preposterous. The naive ramblings of lovestruck teenagers, unsupported by any known science or research.

And yet, here you are. And here he is.

“Have you ever…mated?” Your tongue feels too big in your mouth as you ask the question.

He shakes his head. “No. No. I’ve - “ he motions his hand in the air. “I’ve laid with people, some beta, some omega, but I’ve never, uh.”

You blink, your stomach curling. “Have you ever knotted someone?”

The leather of the steering wheel creaks under his hand. He takes a measured breath. “Yeah, pup. I have.”

The space between your legs aches, sudden and sharp like a wound, and you curl in on yourself on the seat, chewing on your lower lip.

His nostrils flare but he shakes his head softly. “But I’ve never, uh. Bitten someone. Never mated. Never had the desire to.”

You’re nodding like what he’s saying makes any sense to you at all. Like you’re not just hearing the thunder of your heart in your ears.

His voice cuts through the noise in your head when he asks, “And you?” You feel his gaze on your throat like a brand. “You’ve never…”

You shake your head, feeling a little lightheaded. “I had a boyfriend, years ago. A nice boy. A beta. We thought we were in love. I think he lives on the east coast now.”

Thor nods, his jaw working. “Have you...anyone besides him, have you…”

You know what he’s asking, and your gut falls through your lap like a hot coal. Heat spiking up the back of your neck and making your mouth flush with saliva. “No,” you whisper. “I’ve never, uh. Been with an alpha. Never…” _Been knotted_.

He exhales, slowly. Controlled, even as his fists twist on the steering wheel. He nods, his eyes locked forwards out the windshield. “Oh,” he says. Voice dying in his throat as he says it. “Okay.”

The air in the cab is loaded, dripping in scent you’re both throwing off in waves, and you bring the sleeve of his hoodie up to cover your mouth when you part your lips to breathe through it. Feeling your insides clench down around nothing, aching and empty.

You pass another sign that says you’re close to the city and you take the sleeve of his hoodie between your teeth, chewing on it as your hips twitch softly against the seat below you.

 

 

You drive past the city limits of the first town you’ve seen in days and ugly billboards spring up immediately, cluttering up the sides of the road with advertisements for gun stores and personal injury lawyers and steakhouses.

The radio clears of lingering static, a soft woman singing to a piano melody filtering through the speakers.

Thor guides the truck through increasing traffic with little thought, even as your throat starts to close with nerves from the cars and the sounds and the people.

He pulls into an expansive parking lot that’s halfway through town and parks the truck alongside the far curb.

You frown behind the sleeve of your hoodie.

A sprawling, gray building is across the lot, looking worn down and nearly abandoned. There are only a handful of cars in the huge lot. ‘WALMART’ is printed in across the side of the building and you suppress a groan.  

He grins at you from across the cab, reading your bad attitude like an open book. “We need some supplies. Come on, it won’t be bad.”

You don’t budge and he laughs at you, opening the driver’s side door and stepping down. You watch him come around the front of the truck and when he opens your door, you stare down at him.

He grins at you, finding your petulance more charming than he has any right to. “C’mon,” he says. “Don’t make me drag you in. I’ll do it.”

“You won’t,” you mutter, turning in your seat to face him. You hold out your arms to him and he steps up into your space.

Your arms slip around his neck easily and he takes your weight with no effort at all, curling an arm under your thighs as you wrap your legs around his waist.

He laughs into your hair as he shuts your door with an elbow and pulls your hood up over your head as he re-adjusts you in his arms and turns to walk across the lot.

The wind is blowing still, icy cold, and you shove your face against his neck on a grimace, arms squeezing tight around the broad expanse of his throat.

Thor’s steps are long and quick as he carries you across the parking lot, his nose nudging indulgently around your ear like he can’t help himself. You hear the stiff whirr of automatic sliding doors, and then a wave of stale, artificial heat as he carries you across the threshold of the store.

You get your feet back under you reluctantly as he sets you down, pulling your sleeves down over your cold hands as he touches at you, gently, strangely, as if to see if you’re alright. He pulls your hood back from your eyes and the warmth you see in his lights something deep inside you, like a slow smoldering ember.

Tinny Christmas music is playing overhead and everything is bathed in yellowed fluorescent light. Thor’s cheeks are flushed from the cold and he’s looking down at you with an intensity you can’t place, his light mood from before replaced by something edging on fiercely intimate.

“I’m okay,” you find yourself saying, confused as he runs the backs of his knuckles softly down your cheek.

He watches you for a long moment before he nods softly and presses a kiss to your temple, beard scratching your skin there. He bends down to pick up a basket from the stack near the door and steps towards the produce section.

You follow him though the grocery aisles, staying close to him because it feels good to do so as he fills the basket with snacks, bags of crackers and chips, and handfuls of shiny fruit. The basket is nearly full when you make it out of the food area and come upon an open layout of clothes and accessories, and he walks past the men’s section and heads for the women’s section beyond.

He shifts the basket into the crook of his elbow and turns to look down at you when you reach an area with hats and gloves and scarves.

“We’re going to get you some winter gear and some other necessities,” he tells you, sounding determined.

Your eyebrows arch. “Are we?”

He nods, lips quirking playfully. “We are. And you’re not going to be weird about it. You’re going to let me buy them for you. It’s going to be great.”

You push at him with your palm. “I’m not weird about it,” you reply, an obvious and easy lie. The thought of him spending money on you still makes you queasy.

He makes a face at you and laughs then. “Oh, definitely not weird about it. Okay, pup. Let’s go then. Pick out what you want.” Raising his eyebrows in a challenge, ready to call your bluff.

You huff and square your shoulders, marching up to the rack of hanging gloves. After a minute of perusal, you grab a fuzzy black pair, forcing yourself to not look at the price tag.

You toss it in the basket and raise your eyebrows at him. “How’s that for weird?” Ignoring the sour twist in your belly that’s dissipating slowly at the look he’s giving you, his eyes sparkling.

“Well done,” he says, not sounding especially impressed. “Now pick out a hat and a scarf. You’re getting a coat too, so pace yourself.”

You pick out a scarf after a minute, landing on an infinity scarf that is gray and soft and warm-looking, and Thor presents the basket for you to put it in.

You can’t decide on a hat and after a minute, feeling pressure, you look at him and whine pathetically.

He just grins and his hand comes up to palm affectionately at the back of your head. “Alright, alright, let’s see,” he murmurs as he leans over to look at the options closely, running his fingers over each one.

He picks up a few and holds them up next to your face, making thoughtful mouth sounds as he puts them back one by one. He lands on a burgundy beanie with a satisfied nod, and you dutifully stand still as he tugs it carefully onto your head. It’s snug and thick and you know it will keep you warm.

He takes a step back to look at you and nods again, grinning. “Yep, that’s the one. Toss it in.”

You pluck it from your head by the tag and toss it in the basket on top of the others, smoothing your hair down with your palm. You feel warm on the inside, comforted and safe, and you step into his side and wrap your arm around his waist for a quick squeeze. Not trusting your voice in the moment, but needing him to know how whole he has made you feel.

He squeezes you back on a soft grunt, like you could ever actually force the breath out of him. “Coat next, pup. Over this way, I think.”

He leads you around a corner with his arm over your shoulders, walking slow and leisurely. Part of you wonders if these kinds of detours are planned into his schedule. If walking around an old Walmart with you is going to put him behind. Get him in trouble.

You ask him this, voice soft as you come upon the outerwear section, but he shakes his head.

“No,” he says, tugging you close again, a soft squeeze of comfort. “I put in more hours on the road than most people do in a day. I usually get to my target point a few days before I’m even scheduled to. We’ve got time.”

He doesn’t stop you from making your way to the clearance section, and you pull jackets down the sliding rack, glancing at the price tags when you think he’s not looking. You try on a few at his soft insistence, and settle on a black coat that’s long and has a hood and seems warm without being heavy.

When you look to Thor with questioning eyes, he nods. “Perfect, looks good. Keep it on, you can wear it out.”

You begin to walk to the registers in quiet step with each other when your eyes catch on something.

An aisle of intimates - rows of hanging bras and bins of underwear.

Your step falters and he stops immediately, following your gaze.

You look to him and his eyebrows notch up. “Yeah?” he says, nudging you towards the aisle.

You go after he nudges you again, a gentle push on the small of your back, feeling your cheeks heat a little as you walk into the seclusion of the aisle.

There are hundreds of options, but you go straight for the plastic-packaged underwear hanging near the middle of the aisle. Not needing much, but overwhelmed at the prospect of having a clean pair of underwear to slip into. You’ll never tell him this, but the last year of your life has been a daily cycle of wearing your current pair for a day, turning them inside out for another day, and then scrubbing them under the faucet in a gas station bathroom, getting them as clean and as dry as pink gel hand soap and flaking paper towels will allow before slipping them back on.

More than anything else, this would be luxury to you.

You pull a package from the wall and examine it, just plain cotton briefs, a pack of six, all in neutral colors.

Thor comes to stand next to you, looking over your shoulder. He reaches out and pulls a similar package from its hook and holds it next to yours, curiously. His package has brighter colors, pinks and yellows and greens.

“What do you think?” he asks, voice dipping a little low.

You laugh and point to the model on the front of the package he’d grabbed.

“See that?” you ask, your finger lingering around her midsection. “That means those’ll go up to about here -” You snap the band of your leggings underneath your shirt, just over your belly button. “Those are granny panties.”

He laughs too then, cheeks dimpling as he puts the package back, moving fast like its burning his fingers.

You touch his side with your elbow. “Unless you’re into that, I don’t know,” you tease, looking up at his face and watching his eyes crease around the edges as he laughs. “I’m not here to judge.”

He makes a face like he’s considering it before his face creases on another chuckle, all warm and fond for you. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

You grab another package from lower on the wall and show them to him. Feeling emboldened by the quiet, warm intimacy between you as _Jinglebell Rock_ plays distantly overhead.

“Which one?” you ask, holding them out for his inspection. “Briefs,” you shake the first package, “or boyshorts?” You shake the second package.

He blinks and licks his lips, scratching at his jaw on another quiet chuckle that comes deep from within his chest. “Whichever you like better, I suppose.”

You turn to face him more fully. “No,” you press, “Which do you like?”

His eyes rise from the packages to meet yours, slowly, and you watch his nostrils expand on a quiet exhale.

“They’re not for me,” he counters, going for casual, but his voice is nearly a whisper between you.

He’s gone very still, you realize.

You lick your lips, your mouth gone suddenly dry. “I mean,” you murmur. “They kind of are.”

His hand falls to your waist as you step into his space, a small movement, and his fingers grip around the curve of your hip, touching at bare skin. Rooting you to the floor, as if the intensity of his gaze wasn’t doing that already.

A heady spice thickens on the air, and your core lurches at the unmistakable scent of his arousal. Naked and plain as day to anyone who would wander past.

He breathes out slowly, eyes falling slowly shut then back open. He leans down to you and nudges at your temple with his nose, fanning a hot gust of breath over the shell of your ear.

“If I’m being honest,” he says, lowly, like a secret. “You wouldn’t be wearing them long enough for it to matter.”

Desire slices through you like a knife, making your knees knock against each other. Grateful for the strength of his hand around your hip. You watch his nostrils flare again and you know he’s scenting you too. Smelling the heat that’s pooling low in your belly. The slick that’s starting to gather between your legs.

“ _Pup_ ,” he murmurs on something that sounds like a moan, his eyes falling shut as he rubs his beard against your cheek. He sets his teeth on your jaw gently, nipping at the bone, making you jolt in his arms on a gasp.

You stop him with palms around his jaw, holding him steady and feeling the bristles of his beard against your hands. His eyes open to meet yours, pupils blown wide, and you whine softly, needing, leaning up on your toes to bump your nose against his.

You whimper a broken sound and your mouth brushes against his, just a soft, incidental rub of lips, and he’s groaning tugging you hard against him. Dropping the basket to clatter on the floor, bringing his hands up to tilt your head back as he curls down around you.

The first press of his lips to yours feels like a brand, making your fingers clutch and fist in the soft fabric of his t-shirt as he draws you in and in and in. He pulls back on a breath, scraping his beard along the ridge of your jaw before kissing you again.

His lips nudge yours apart and the first touch of his tongue to yours is dizzying. He tastes you there, in the middle of the aisle in a run down Walmart, his chest heaving like he’s run a marathon.

You cling to his shirt to stay upright, panting hotly against his mouth, moaning his name when he pulls back to scent your throat again. You can feel your heartbeat in your core, deep in your belly and down between your legs, pulsing and fluttering frantically as his teeth close around your bottom lip and tug.

A stern _tut_ sounds from the far end of the aisle, and you pull back like you’ve been burned, blinking rapidly to try to clear the want that’s clouding over your eyes. The lights overhead seem unbearably bright and you fight the urge to shield your eyes as you try to get your vision back.

A woman is standing at the end of the aisle, hands clasped firmly around the handle of a shopping cart. She’s frowning at you, her mouth an ugly, twisted shape.

Thor still has you pulled close, bending low to scrape his beard over the flushed skin of your sternum. Completely ignoring the woman who has you pressing your hands to his shoulders, trying to get his attention from where he’s grunting softly, pleased and heated into your skin.

The woman nearly stamps her foot on the linoleum floor. She clears her throat, loudly. Rudely, and the sound echoes.

You want the floor to open up and swallow you whole.

He lifts his head, finally, cheeks flushed, eyes distant.

She clears her throat again. A high-pitched, scratchy _A-HEMM_ that makes mortification bloom hot in your chest.

Thor, the maniac, lifts his lip at her and _growls_.

It comes from deep within him, a low, rumbling sound that telegraphs threat, and you don’t even see the woman as she startles and leaves in a rush because you’re finding his face with your hands and bringing it to yours and licking into his mouth, shivering with want in his arms. Overwhelmed completely by the depth of his desire for you and the strength of his want to possess you.

He keeps growling as he kisses you, a low, steady rumble, unable to stop it it seems, until he finally surfaces again, pressing his forehead to yours and breathing in deeply.

When his eyes open and find yours, the blue in them has started to return, thin rings glowing around the huge black of his pupils.

Your chest is rising and falling on heavy pants between parted lips, and you lean back against his arm that’s wrapped securely around your waist. Blinking up at him and swallowing past the tightness in your throat.

“That was...” your voice comes out a rasp that trails off, shaking your head.

Your hand finds his jaw and pets at his beard and you can see his pupils begin to shrink on each slow blink. You hold his face in your hands as he comes back to you, whispering his name softly to bring him round as your senses return to you slowly, one by one.

The hard clutch of his arm around you softens finally and he shifts, standing upright. He takes in a shuddering breath and then puts a big hand on your shoulder, pushing you gently back a step or two.

Your face falls, distressed, but he shakes his head and flashes a wry smile at you. His hand remains on your shoulder, holding you away from him.

“Are you - okay?” Your hand comes up to cover his.

He laughs, short and hot, and shakes his head even as he says, “Yeah, pup. I just need. A minute.”

The air around you is clouded with scent, a thrumming mix of arousal and stress and conflict, and it makes you want to go to him. To lay your head down on the heavy beat of his heart to calm him.

His hand tightens on your shoulder. “Don’t,” he warns, smiling again, but his eyes are still gleaming with something predatory that has your insides twisting up. His voice is a low confession when he speaks.

“I’m...about a second away from mounting you here on the floor, pup.”

Breath rattles out of your lungs as spots clutter up your vision, an explosion of sudden, delirious color.

“Oh,” you say weakly. Feeling a bead of slick slip past the line of your panties and soak into your leggings. “Okay, I’ll just...”

You wait, the muscles in your legs trembling. For a long moment, nothing happens. You stand, and he stands, at an impasse.

You expect him to close his eyes. To look or move away from you, but he doesn’t.  He keeps his eyes locked on you as you squeeze your hand around his on your shoulder, and you focus on settling yourself. On regulating your breathing and calming yourself down, knowing it will help.

His eyes bleed back to blue, noticeable to you even at your distance, and you watch as he lifts his nose on the air. Taking gentle pulls of the calming scent you’re consciously exuding from every pore, letting it curl and warm in his chest where it’s needed.

When his fingers flex around your shoulder a minute later and then release you, you nearly follow his hand as it falls to his side.

“Okay,” he breathes, nodding at your questioning look.

You step towards him slowly. Needing to touch him, even just from him holding you away for a minute. “You’re alright?” you ask as your fingertips brush over his abdomen over his t-shirt.

He nods again, bending down to pick up the basket from the floor and tossing one of the underwear packages that had dropped to the floor into it. “I’m good, pup.” He looks around you. “We should go.”

You fall into step with him as he turn and heads to the front of the store. He lifts his arm for you and you go, easily fitting yourself against his side. Reveling in the sure strength of his arm as it curls around your shoulders.

He’s alert as he walks you through the store. Back to himself, but quietly scanning this way and that. Looking for what, you’re not sure, but you can feel that the alpha in him that had reared its head has not been entirely pacified. It’s thrumming, just below the surface. Thickening up the air around you with the heavy, intimate pulse of possession that makes something cinch tight deep within your chest.

He steers you to a self-checkout with a hand on your lower back, looking back over his shoulder as he puts the basket down on the register.

You give him a squeeze around the middle, soothing, and start to scan items.

When you get to the hat, you scan it and tug the tag off and hand it to him, smiling.

He reads you after a beat and leans down into you, carefully tugging the hat over your head and pulling it down over your ears.

You scan the scarf next and hand it to him, baring your neck obediently as he wraps it around your neck with gentle hands. The coat is next, and he carefully pulls the tag from the collar and scans it on the register.

He takes care of the rest, tapping the screen to type in the produce codes for the apples and oranges in the bottom of the basket. You let your hand curl around his elbow and rest your cheek against his jean-jacket covered bicep.

He pays with cash, like always, feeding flat bills into register and putting his wallet back into his back pants pocket. He takes up the plastic bag in his hand and curls his other hand around the side of your neck. Looking down on you with clear blue eyes framed with dark, thick lashes.

“There you are,” you whisper, squeezing his arm.

He smiles and finally, the tension in him is gone. “Could you eat? There’s a sandwich place two stores down.”

You nod, and move with him when he steps towards the door. “I could eat,” you say, quietly. Over the whirr of the door, you thank him. You thank him for everything, not sure if he hears you say it.

The pulse of his hand around yours tells you that he did. 

 

 

You sit across from him in a rubbery booth, taking measured bites of your sandwich. Turkey and swiss and mayo and lettuce and tomato. Heaven on toasted bread.

He’s watching you as he eats, chewing slowly. Taking sips from his cup of water between bites.

He has something to say, so you wait. And eat, still getting used to the taste of fresh food, crisp and clean and warm in your hands.

Finally, he scrubs his hand over his chin and speaks. “That won’t happen again, pup.”

You take a sip of your soda. “What won’t?”

His eyes still on you. “I won’t do that again. Lose control like that.” He smiles but he’s very serious. Very still.

Your brows draw on your forehead. “You were protecting me.”

He huffs a soft laugh. “From a retiree.”

You hold out a hand to him, sliding it across the table. He looks down at it for a moment before covering it with his.

He shrugs, after a beat of silence. “I just didn’t expect it. I wasn’t prepared. But I am now.”

You breathe in and then out, your heart lumbering oddly in your chest. “Prepared for what?”

He shrugs again, a lift of one shoulder. “How you make me feel, pup. I wasn’t ready for it.”

The front door opens and closes as a couple enters, and you shiver at the gust of cold air across your face. Even bundled up, it’s bitter outside.

The worker behind the counter greets the couple by name. They must be regulars.

Thor’s thumb rubs across the back of your palm and brings you back to him.

His eyes are searching when they meet yours. A warm, soft blue that feels like the ocean in a shallow, sand-floored bay. “I won’t let it happen again. You don’t have to worry.”

You laugh then, a soft, quiet sound. You give his hand a squeeze before drawing back and picking up your sandwich.

“What?” he asks. Lightening on your smile like it gave him permission to.

You shake your head at him, nudging him under the table with your foot. “I never worry when I’m with you, Thor.”

His eyebrows notch up on his forehead at that. You swear you can hear his heartbeat thud against his ribs.

“Yeah?” he asks. Finally picking his sandwich back up, the paper wrapper crinkling in his hands.

You scrunch your nose at him and bump him under the table again. “Yeah, Thor. Yeah.”

He takes a bite and chews it slowly and you mirror him, grinning at him around your food.

The taste of crisp lettuce and creamy mayo bursts on your tongue and the gentle note of contented spice that’s quietly blooming around you in the air feels like a warm caress on your cheek.

 

 

Nighttime finds you in another state. Colorado, Thor had pointed out when you’d crossed the border. When you’d told Thor you’d never been, he’d smiled and squinted into the sun to look at you. He’d promised you you’d love it.

Now, the sun is far below the horizon and Thor is outside preparing the truck for sleep.

You’re moving slowly, tinkering around in the bathroom, moving things in the little cupboards as a way to pass the time.

When you finally leave the bathroom, he hasn’t yet returned.

You strip naked and leave your clothes in a pile on the floor, tugging a pair of clean underwear up your legs and shivering in the feel of them. You see a shirt of Thor’s spilling from an open drawer, and you take it, pulling it over your head and nosing indulgently at the collar.

You crawl under the covers, rubbing your legs together against the smooth glide of the sheets.

You catch a whiff of yourself on the sheets as you roll around, smelling strongly of Thor and just on this side of ripe. You remind yourself to ask him for a shower tomorrow and feel your stomach lurch a little at the thought.

Truck stops have bathrooms to rent. Showers to use, stocked with thin shampoo and conditioner that runs from your palms before you can rub your hands together to lather. You’d used one, once. Back then, before you knew any better. 

The driver’s side door opens and Thor rushes in, slamming the door hard behind him to keep out the cold.

He moves back to you quickly, an immense, shadowy presence in the dark of the cab. His caution and pause at you in his bed the night before all but forgotten.

You hear him strip of his clothes more than you see it, and the first touch of his skin to yours under the covers has you yelping and scooting away.

“You are _freezing,_ ” you whine, wiggling away from him, but his shins get caught up in yours and before you can stop him, his arms are snaking around your waist and pulling you back against him. Snug against his chest like a cork in the neck of a wine bottle.

“ _Thor_ ,” you hiss, wracking on a full-body shiver as he presses his chilled nose to the crook of your neck, and he laughs into the skin there as he holds you tighter still.

You push at him with a groan, and he acquiesces with a smile you can feel pressed against the nape of your neck.

He lifts himself from you and you turn, settling on your back beneath him.

In the dim of the in-line lights, you can barely make out his features, but you feel the fondness in his cheeks as you reach up to hold his jaw in your hand.

“Do you want me freeze to death?” you ask quietly, around a smile, as another shiver runs through you.

He makes a dissenting noise into the palm, followed by a soft chuckle. “No, pup,” he murmurs into your hand. “I don’t want you to freeze to death.”

Something lingers in the air and you tilt your chin up to meet him when he bends low to press a kiss to your lips.

He breathes out slowly, sliding his mouth over yours. In no hurry at all as he takes your chin between his thumb and forefinger, gently pulling down and opening your mouth to him.

You sigh, your fingers curling around the curve of his shoulder as he tastes into you. A hot, slow delve of a velvet soft tongue against yours that has your toes curling against the hair on his shins.

When he pulls back to press a kiss to your jaw, you stare at the darkened ceiling of the cab and pant quietly, heart filling to the point of bursting in your chest.

“What do you want, Thor?” you ask, breathless and wanting.

He makes a thoughtful noise in his throat as he rubs his beard across the bone of your jaw, a slow, deliberate path back and forth and back again, until the skin there is pink and sensitive and smelling of him.

“What I want, pup,” he murmurs into the skin behind your ear. He hmms quietly as he presses his lips to the pulse point in your throat. “Is to keep you.”

Your fingers grip in his shirt and you find his face with your hands. Pulling him up and leaning in to meet him, a press of wet lips and sharp teeth that has you arching beneath him.

“You have me,” you whisper, as his head ducks low against to suck on the skin above your collarbone. “You have me, you have me, you have me, you have me.”

  

 

You wake to an empty bed, and your searching, sleepy hands coming up empty has you bolting upright in bed on a rattling gasp. Flinching against the sunlight that’s cutting across the bed, calling out his name before you can even think. Wondering for a stupid, panicked moment if he’s left you.

Everything smells of him, the blankets, the pillows, the walls, and you know he can’t have been gone long.

You sit for a lingering moment, heart thudding painfully against your ribs as your eyes adjust to the bright morning light. You push your hair back from your eyes and cringe at the greasy feel of it, wiping your hands absently after on your shirt. 

Heat is pumping from the fans overhead, the truck rumbling quietly below you, and you push the blankets from your lap and crawl to the edge of the bed. Swallowing down a queasy turn of your stomach on his absence as you pad softly through the cab on bare feet. Finding it empty and Thor gone, music softly playing from the dashboard.

You go about some semblance of a morning routine for lack of anything better to do. Changing into fresh clothes you find in some open drawers. Finding some degree of comfort in brushing your teeth and hair and washing your face in the little sink as you force yourself to ignore the anxiety gnawing at your gut.

You’re patting your face down with a towel when hear the telltale click of the driver’s door and turn so quickly in place in the tiny bathroom that you slam your elbow against the wall.

Cursing and rubbing at it, you pull back the door and step out into the hall.

Right into Thor, colliding abruptly with him in the small space on a quiet, surprised gasp.

“Woah,” he says on a chuckle, voice like the morning sun as he steadies you with hands on your shoulders. “There you go.”

His nose and ears are tipped pink from the cold but his eyes and smile are bright. “I thought I could sneak in with you still asleep.”

Your eyes fall to the paper bag in his hand and your stomach rumbles. “Breakfast?”

“Breakfast.” He nods towards the bed, grinning. “Get settled in, I have to get my boots off.”

You let out an exaggerated sigh of contentment as you squeeze past him in the hall and collapse back onto the bed, sitting up on your elbows to watch as he bends low and unlaces his boots with one hand.

He takes up all of the space in the little hallway, toeing off his boots and shrugging out of his jacket, which he drapes over the driver’s seat before moving back towards you.

He tosses you the paper bag in his hand as he kneels onto the bed, crawling over until his back is pressed up against the back wall.

Inside, you find bottles of cold juice, two warm pastries, and two apples. You divvy everything up, placing his items on his lap as your knees brush against his thighs, warm beneath jeans.

The croissant is warm between your hands and buttery between your lips as you take a bite. You groan happily as you tear off a piece from the end to nibble on. “Where did you even get these?”

He shrugs with one shoulder as he twists the cap from a bottle of orange juice and takes a pull. “There was a little bakery down the street a ways. I saw it when we pulled in last night.”

Your brows twist. You’d both seen it when you’d driven past the night before. “It was like mile a back.”

“Yeah, probably.”

The truck is rumbling quietly beneath you. Has been since you woke up. “You _walked_ there?”

He shrugs one shoulder with a goofy smile on his face. “Sure.”

“Thor!” You shove his thigh. “It’s _freezing_ outside, what are you doing walking that far for no reason?”

“Food is an excellent reason,” he counters, taking a hulking bite of his muffin for emphasis, cutting it in half in his hand.

You rock up onto your knees and lean into his space, cupping your palm over his ear. It’s still icy to the touch and you curl your fingers around it.

“You’re still cold.”

He chuckles a soft sound. “I run warm, pup. It’s fine. I wanted to feed you something better than a bag of vending machine pretzels.”

You settle back onto the bed and regard him, popping another piece of bread into your mouth.

In the early morning light, everything about him is soft and golden. Even in his wrinkled hoodie and windblown hair, he is startlingly handsome. The kind of man you’d look twice at if you saw him on the street.

And here he is. Here, with you, eyes crinkling around the edges with fondness as he looks at you.

He makes a soft, surprised sound when you lean up into his space and press your lips to his. A chaste pluck of lips before you’re pulling back and taking another bite of your croissant.

He watches you quietly for a beat as you swallow your bite and twist the cap from your juice bottle and take a sip. Your eyes fall to somewhere on his chest and stall out there as your mind gets lost in a distant memory.

His knee nudges yours.

“You’re thinking,” he says.

You nod, a slow smile spreading across your lips as your eyes return to his. “I am,” you agree. “I just…” You pause, then speak again. “I think you’re my reward. For all of it. All of the other terrible stuff. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but…I’ll take it. I’ll take you.”

A smile mirroring yours spreads across his face and his knee nudges yours again. “My pup is a romantic,” he teases, laughing when you push at him and groan.

“Your pup needs a shower,” you correct, pushing your hair behind your ear. “Badly.”

He finishes off his juice bottle and crinkles his muffin wrapper into a ball. “That’s not a bad idea. I’m getting pretty smelly, too.”

His scent is stronger now than in days past, but you’re not about to tell him that it’s only gotten more appealing to you the riper and headier it’s gotten.

He starts to gather up garbage and stuff it into the paper bag from the bakery, climbing off the bed and stretching as high as the ceiling in the cab will allow.

“Have you ever used a travel stop shower? It’s, uh...an experience,” he says on a laugh as he walks to the front of the cab.

“Yeah, I have...” you reply, your voice trailing off as your mind begins to run.

Thor settles into the driver’s seat and the truck gives a small lurch as he puts it into drive.

“Good,” Thor says as he looks over his shoulder to pull out of the lot. “It can be an odd time if you’ve never done it before.”

If he notices your discomfort, he doesn’t mention it as he steers the truck onto the highway and gets it up to speed.

You pick yourself up from the bed slowly, making your way to the front passenger seat with a steadying hand on the wall. You fold down into your seat, curling your legs up underneath you, breathing around the unsteady lurch of your heart in your chest. Working hard to keep your face neutral as you feel anxiety start to twist in your stomach, reaching down to turn the volume dial on the radio.

Thor looks over at you and gives you a quiet, lingering look, before returning his gaze out through the windshield. He says nothing, but he rubs his hand over his chin, a loud scrape against the bristles there as he turns on cruise control and leans back against his seat. 

 

 

The travel stop is well-advertised and easy to find, visible from the highway by flashing signs promising warm food and shower facilities and kind hospitality. Thor navigates the crowded parking lot without much effort, easing the truck and trailer into a tight spot surrounded by other trucks and milling people.

It had been a few hours on the road to get here. Quiet hours that you’d spent fiddling with the radio and tying and untying a small braid in your hair while Thor shot you glances he thought you didn’t notice.

When he turns the key back in the ignition and the engine dies out, he looks to you again. “You ready?” he asks, voice pitched in a way that you’ve learned is muted concern, and you sit up straight in your chair. Annoyed with yourself and resolving to get a grip.

“Yes,” you say, determined, and you push open your door and start to climb down before Thor has even unbuckled his seatbelt.

He meets you on the ground, coming around the front of the truck, eyeing you in a quietly worried way that you steadfastly ignore as you fall into step beside him. 

The sun is out in full force, high above you and beating down with warm rays that the light breeze can’t quite carry fully away. The hard-packed snow over the parking lot asphalt is gleaming from it, slushing and beginning to melt a little under your boots as you walk with Thor to the large building ahead.

It’s busy, around the lunch hour and located off of a well-trafficked highway, and when Thor reaches for the door for you, he ends up holding it for several other people on their way out, all clutching steaming beverages and bags of snack food for the road.

Inside, a large sign advertises showers, with an arrow painted in bright red pointing to a counter at the far end of the room, and Thor goes right to it, fishing his wallet out of his back pocket as he approaches.

The man behind the counter slowly rolls to his feet from a rolling computer chair when Thor taps his wallet on the counter.

“How many showers?” the man behind the counter asks, biting back a bored yawn.

“Two,” Thor says, glancing down at you and then back at the man. “Towels too, please.”

He hits a few buttons on the register. “Alright, two shower tokens plus towels. Do you need one or two shower stalls?” You don’t miss the way his eyes linger between you and Thor, like there’s something seedy going on, and it makes you set your jaw.

You say “one” just as Thor says “two.”

Thor looks down at you, eyebrows lifted on his forehead.

“One,” you repeat to the man, who shrugs and punches more numbers into the register.

You’d been alone in a travel stop shower stall once. You’d left later, throat hoarse from crying, skin still rubbed raw where you tried to scrub off the stain of an unwanted touch. You’re not doing it again.

“I just want to be with you,” you say quietly to Thor when he touches your elbow with his fingers, and he nods after a long moment of stillness.

“Okay. Alright. One stall,” Thor says to the cashier. “Thanks.”

Thor pays cash and pockets the two plastic coins and set of keys the cashier hands over. You take the two towels the cashier slides across the counter in your arms and follow the signs to the shower area, wanting to be away from him.

Thor follows, his hand touching at your hip as you cross the threshold onto a room with tiled floor and solid doors along every wall. You stand by him as he drops the two tokens into a slot and step back the door makes a whirring sound and unlocks.

He holds the door for you and nods for you to go first, and you step into the little room, taking measured breaths and barely keeping yourself from bolting.

It’s a small room with lockers and wall hooks on one end and a single shower head on the far wall, with a sheer shower curtain suspended on a rod that passes over the middle of the room. A plastic box on the wall with pumps hanging down beneath looks to dispense soap and shampoo and conditioner.

You set the towels on the small plastic bench next to the lockers, and when you look up, Thor is watching you.

The room is chilly, all cold tile and open air, and you wrap your arms around your waist, shifting your weight on your feet under his gaze.

“Pup,” he says, voice pitched low.

“I’m fine,” you reply immediately, your fingers tugging on the zipper of your jacket hard enough that it makes an echoing sound in the air.

His hand closes over yours, stopping you.

“You’ve reeked of fear since breakfast.” There’s no judgement in his voice, just a resigned, quiet worry that makes your chest ache.

Your hand is gentle when it pulls his away, finishing unzipping your coat and shrugging out of it. Moving to the wall to hang it on a hook. “Thor,” you say, biting your tongue to keep your voice from wavering. “It’s alright. I’m fine. I just want to get clean.”

He watches you, quietly unhappy. Fully clothed and somber as he watches you slowly shed articles of clothing.

You place your shirt and leggings on the bench next to the towels, and seeing the flash of your bare skin in the harsh light seems to jog him. When you reach behind you to unclasp your bra, he lets out a soft exhale and turns to face away as he starts to disrobe.

Your bra and underwear join your other clothes on the bench and you move quickly to the far wall, cranking the water on and turning the temperature dial as hot as it will go.

The first splash of water on the tile is frigid and you let out a startled gasp, lurching back on reflex, arms gripped tight around your waist. You stand there, shivering, as the pipes creak and the water slowly begins to warm.

Once the water has hit room temperature, you go to step under the stream, goosebumps prickling all over your body, but you stop yourself. Looking over your shoulder and seeing Thor standing by the lockers.

He’s stripped down to nothing and is an impossible span of tanned, smooth skin, standing there with his arms at his sides. Neither ashamed in his nudity nor boasting in it. Just standing, a broad spread of shoulders that tapers down to a coarse waist, and watching you, his brows drawn down on his forehead.

You hold out your hand to him, trembling from shivers, but he stays rooted to his spot.

“I don’t know what you need right now, pup.” His voice is thick in the steamy air, like it's caught up in his throat. “Tell me what you need.”

Your voice wavers when you answer. “I need you.”

He blinks at you from across the room, like maybe he doesn't believe you, but he moves to you then, slowly. Like he’s afraid of spooking you.

You turn and face into the spray of the water because the look on his face is making your chest feel tight. The water is warm, finally, and you step under it, closing your eyes and turning your face up into it.

It feels heavenly, in spite of everything. You start to scrub your face with your fingers in small little circles, lifting off layers of dirt and grime that wash down your arms and down the drain.

A soft touch at your elbow tells you that Thor is there, and when you turn to look at him, blinking water from your eyes, the sight of him makes your heart flip.

Through the steam, he’s watching you with care, dark eyelashes clumping together and framing electric blue eyes. His hair is down, a heavy curtain that hangs around his shoulders, the ends starting to curl a little in the heated air.

He steps into your space and turns his face into the spray, and you let yourself simply watch as he pushes his wetted hair back from his face. The water soaks into his beard, darkening it, and you give in to the impulse to reach up and touch it, fingers skating over the rough scrape of it.

He opens his eyes to look down at you, his hands coming to curl around both of your elbows, drawing you close.

“You’re good,” he says quietly. Not a question, but a statement.

You nod, curling your hand around his jaw. Taking in a needy pull of the soothing scent coming from deep in his chest. “I’m with you,” you agree. “I’m good.”

He reaches past you after a moment to the soap dispenser on the wall, filling his palm with a foamy pool of soap that he spreads across the flat plane of his chest, suds bubbling up on the coarse hair there.

He pauses when your hand joins his, gathering soap in your palm and scrubbing down the strength of his pectoral muscle. Scratching your fingernails against his skin as your hand tracks a path across his chest.

He rumbles out a soft exhale, a pleased, feline sound, and he goes still under your hands. Letting you as you get more soap from the dispenser and run both hands down the ridges of his abdomen and around his waist to his lower back.

The feel of him under your hand is a revelation, chords of thick muscle under soft skin, and your mind gets wrapped up in it. Focuses on mapping him out with soft fingertips instead of lingering on the vaguely sick feeling that’s been sitting in your belly like a stone since you arrived.

He lifts his arms obediently for you to wash under his arm and your lips part on the wave of scent that comes from him when he does. The hair under his arms is dark and it makes your stomach do a funny flip when you scrub your fingers through it, a twist of heat at the plain masculinity it presents.

You have to lean up on to your toes to scrub over his shoulders and around the base of his neck, and you feel his throat rumble on another pleased sound under your fingertips when your fingers curl into the wet hair at the nape of his neck.

He looks like he might kiss you as he looks down at you, water dripping from the thick fan of his lashes. He does, after a searching moment, tilting your jaw up to meet him. It’s soft and without urgency, just a breath of a kiss, and when he pulls back, he swipes his thumb over the swell of your cheekbone.

He holds you there with a steadying hand as he reaches past you to the dispenser on the wall.

The first span of his hand over your belly has you sighing and swaying on your feet. Overwhelmed by the size of him, by the rub of his calloused palm as he washes you.

He moves over your body with care and a soft touch, strong fingers curling around the curve of your hip and beyond. Easing suds over your lower back and then up between your shoulder blades, then back around to your front. His fingers soothe the underside of your breasts, a soft caress that has you shivering against his hand.

When he speaks, his voice is nearly a whisper through the heavy stream.

“You’ve had a bad experience,” he says. “Doing this. At a place like this.”

Your eyes close and focus on the soothing stroke of his palm over your lower back.

“Yes,” you say.

He makes a soft sound and he nudges his nose against your temple, scenting you on instinct. Gently rubbing his bearded jaw across your cheek and smelling of the deepest depths of comfort.

“I’m sorry, pup,” he says. Voice soft and sad, like he means it.

You close the distance between you with a single step, bumping your cheek against his chest and wrapping your arms around his waist. Feeling the healthy beat of his heart against your cheek and inhaling deep lungfuls of his scent. His arms are strong when they wrap around your shoulders and waist.

He rocks you, a gentle sway of weight between his feet. A quiet slow dance under hot water, his entire body curling around yours, engulfing you fully. Safely.

Surrounded entirely by him, you’re drowned in his scent. In the possession and claim of it, a burst of heavy spice that clouds up in the steam, the ferocity of his desire to keep and guard you making your eyes flutter behind closed lids. It fills your bloodstream like hit of serotonin, thick and heady and intoxicating.

You’ve never experienced anything like it. You’ve felt want before, from alphas eyeing you across the room. You’ve felt the dangerous turn of lust on the air from alphas following you as you walk down the street, after the sun has disappeared below the horizon.

You’ve never felt this, though. This bone-deep intimacy, frightening in intensity and overwhelming of your senses. This quiet, desperate pull of gravity that you seem to be feeling in equal measure to him.

It feels like the ground is moving beneath you even though you’re anchored by his arms.

“Thor,” you murmur after a long moment, pulling back a little in his arms. Nearly slurring your words.

“Shit,” he mutters softly and curling his hands around your jaw and turning your face up towards him. Steadying you. “Sorry, pup.”

“You’re getting me drunk,” you murmur, blinking against the fine mist of the shower, and he laughs a soft sound.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, pressing a kiss to your chin, then your lips, before taking a small step back.

The air clears a little with the distance, cooler air rushing into the space between you, and he nods when he sees you come back to yourself on a few strong inhales of cleared air.

You steady yourself with a flat palm on his abdomen, fingers flexing against the strength of muscle there. You look up at his face, feeling heat in your cheeks at the way it feels to be in his arms.

“You’re so hot,” you say miserably, voice coming out a whimper, and his eyebrows shoot up on his forehead before collapsing back down on a soft bark of laugh.

“I way overdid it, pup,” he says, smiling as he keeps you upright with hands on your shoulders. “You’re talking nonsense.”

You feel light headed but you shake your head. “Not nonsense,” you insist, scratching your hands through the thick trail of hair below his navel.

He catches your hand before it can travel lower, bringing it up to his lips to press a kiss to your knuckles. “You’re wasted,” he chuckles, impossibly fond. You sway against him, buzzing and warm and lazy, feeling like a cat stretched out in a sunbeam.

“Focus,” he chastises on a grin when you try to touch him again, your hand aiming crassly between his legs before he stops you. “We’ll run out of hot water if we stay much longer.”

He dispenses shampoo into your hands and brings them to your scalp, encouraging you to wash your hair. You grumble but comply, leaning against him as you lather suds deep in the roots.

“There you go,” he says, reaching up to scrub at his own hair with big hands. “Wash up now.”

You work your fingers across your scalp, titling your face into the spray to sweep suds away from your eyes and rinsing until your hands come away from your hair clean.

Thor rinses off above you, leaning into your space and tilting his jaw up to cleanse his beard in the water. Raising his arms to scrub his fingers through his hair, opening the hinge of his shoulder and exposing the dark thatch of hair under his arms.

You tip up on your toes and nudge your nose against the soft skin there. He pays you no mind, closing his eyes and wiping his hands over his face as you breathe him in on greedy little pulls of air.

He smells mostly of soap now, a clean, light scent, but when you press your nose into the crease of his underarm, you can still taste some of his lingering spice.

He pulls away from you on a startled chuckle, looking down at you with his face all twisted up in a confused smile. “You like me now that I don’t stink anymore, huh?”

You suppress a shiver when he turns the dial on the wall and the water cuts off, bathing the room in hollow silence and hot steam.

“I liked you better stinky,” you confess, and he grins. Eyes a bright, happy blue.

“You’re drunk still,” he says, resting his hand over your lower back and guiding you back towards the lockers.

He hands you a towel and you set to work, curling it around your hair and wringing it out between your hands. “I’m not,” you say, steadfastly ignoring the wobble in your knees. “I just like the way you smell.”

Thor’s eyebrows raise as he scrubs a towel over his chest and downwards. “What do I smell like?”

You look up at the tiled ceiling, thinking. A thousand images running through your mind at once, unable to to come up with words to describe it.

A smile curves your lips. “Come here.”

You hold up your hands and he leans dutifully down to you, pressing his cheeks against your palms.

You lean up into his space and nose along the line of his beard that covers the thick expanse of his throat. Lips parting as you go, huffing quietly as you take him in. The taste of him settles heavily on the back of your tongue and warms you to your toes.

Your wet lips press against the ridge of his adam’s apple as he swallows, and you hear him exhale quietly above you.

“You smell,” you murmur, nudging your nose up the line of his jaw, licking at the skin underneath it to chase the flavor. “You smell like a thunderstorm.”

His hands come to fit around the curve of your hips, tugging you closer.

“You smell like allspice and coffee and mountain air.” You teeth set on the skin under the hinge of his jaw and you feel his fingers spasm tight over your hip bones. “You smell like a man. You smell like an alpha. You smell like you want to eat me alive.”

He groans, so softly you nearly miss it, but he pulls back from your hands then. Standing upright and pushing his hair back from his face with a rough hand.

A familiar splash of spice thickens the air and you feel a pulse of urgency between your legs.

Your eyes are on his but you see from your periphery when his hand rubs at his jaw and travels lower. Down, below your line of sight. But you see, somehow, as he takes himself in hand and gives himself a soft, gripping squeeze that draws another soft groan from him.

“Pup,” he says, voice a low warning. His pupils are expanding like drops of dark blood in clear water. “We can’t stay.” Even as he says it, his fingers flex around your waist.

“I know,” you whisper, your arm falling to his forearm. “I know, I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head but doesn’t move away. “It’s alright.” With some effort, he loosens his grip on you, letting his hands fall to his side. “It’s okay. I just can’t think when you’re close like this.”

“Why?” you ask. Voice a thick croak in your throat through the steam.

“Because pup,” he murmurs, his thumb reaching out to rub hard against your bottom lip. “You smell like _me_.”

 

 

You end up in the small cafe at the far end of the travel plaza, sitting next to him in a booth. Knees pressed together under the table, water dripping from your wet hair down onto the collar of your shirt.

Thor has his palm wrapped around a steaming coffee mug, his arm draped over the back of the bench behind you. His hair is still damp too, pulled back neatly at his nape, and you get lost in the view of the tendons and muscles in his neck moving under the skin as he leans back and lets his eyes drift over the scene around you.

It’s past the lunch hour so the place has mostly cleared out, leaving you and Thor the only two patrons in the restaurant.

Service is slow - it’s been five minutes since the middle-aged waitress stopped by to give you menus and pour Thor a cup of coffee - but you’re not in any rush. Tucked close under his arm is as warm as you’ve ever been and part of you wants to capture the moment, the quiet, intimate stillness of it, forever in your mind.

Thor pushes his mug over to your hand, coffee creamy brown and steaming, and you curl grateful fingers around it. Your first sip is careful, but it’s the perfect temperature. Heating you down to your core when you swallow, just under too-warm.

You humm appreciatively, content, and lean back against his arm behind you. Looking up at him over your shoulder to find him watching you.

He smiles at you and when you tilt your chin up, he bends down to meet you. Kissing you as softly and as easily as breathing, making your heart trip and thump behind your ribs at being allowed this, any time you want.

Your eye is drawn by a flurry of movement as someone rushes over to your table. A new waitress, much younger than the one before, smoothing down her hair as she pulls out a notepad from her apron.

“I’m so sorry for the wait,” she says, a little out of breath, smile overly cheery. “What can I get you?”

“No problem,” you say, waving off her apology after Thor doesn’t respond to her at all. He’s still watching you, looking down at you with soft eyes, until you nudge him and nod towards her.

He blinks and turns, a polite smile sliding automatically onto his face when his eyes meet hers.

You watch the expression shift on her face at the sight of him. Lips puckering a little on her smile, eyelashes lowering and then rising again. Pupils all but dilating in the soft light coming in from the windows on the far wall.

You almost laugh, and not unkindly.

You’ve been there. You can’t exactly blame her.

“I’ll have the grilled cheese,” you say, raising your eyebrows when it takes a moment for her eyes to jump to yours. “With a cup of tomato soup. Please.”

She laughs, high pitched and girlish and nervous. “Sounds good,” she says, scribbling on her pad. “And you?” She turns to Thor and you swear you see color rise to her cheeks.

He lets out a loud exhale, caught a little off guard. “Uhh, I don’t know.” He hasn’t even looked at his menu. “What’s good here?”

You take another sip of coffee as she lists off the specials that you suspect are just items they’re trying to clean out of the kitchen. He settles on a sandwich, some monstrosity they call “the meat monster”, and the waitress leaves after a long beat, twirling on the ball of her foot and trotting off.

You swallow a laugh as you take another drink of coffee.

Thor looks down at you. “What’s funny?”

You nearly roll your eyes. “Come on.”

He takes the mug back from you and takes a long pull, the muscles in his throat working and drawing your eye. “What is it?”

You drop your hand to his lap and squeeze his thigh. Leaning in to whisper, “She’s super into you.”

His brow twists in confusion. “Who is?”

“Oh my god,” you mutter, wanting to take his face between your hands and shake it. “The waitress. She’s super into you.”

Thor snorts a laugh, leaning back against the bench. “No she’s not. She’s just doing her job.”

Part of you thinks he’s teasing you. “Are you serious? She nearly crawled into your lap.”

He shakes his head in disagreement, glancing over to where the waitress is standing behind the counter. Staring at him.

“She was just being friendly,” he insists, sincerely, and you bump him with your shoulder.

“She wasn’t,” you say, a fond smile tugging at your mouth. “It’s fine, I don’t blame her.”

He blinks at you, a slow smile dawning across his face.

It makes you wonder what kind of life he’s lead for a man that looks like him to not be used to receiving compliments.

“Who’s the flirt now?” he murmurs, nudging you back.

You shrug on a grin. “Yeah, but I’m allowed to.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, voice pitching low. “You are.”

Something stirs in your chest like a bird unfurling its wings and you turn in the booth to face him fully. Reaching up and cupping your hand over his cheek and guiding him to you.

You make a soft sound at the press of his lips to yours, a possessive lurch tightening around your ribs, and your fingers grip at the hard line of his jaw as you spread your lips over his.

You feel the puff of an exhale through his nose when your tongue touches his, a fleeting, flirty taste that has him opening to you, groaning softly into your mouth.

You pull back after a moment, feeling a familiar, dangerous heat in your belly, and your hand on his chest is all that keeps him from following you and laying you underneath him in the booth.

When the waitress returns with your food a few minutes later, Thor has pulled you into his lap, his hands settled comfortably around your waist. His nose is pressed up behind your ear, face pressed to your damp hair, and when you move to slide back to your seat, trying to stifle an uncomfortable smile at the waitresses stare, he tightens his arms around you. Rooting you to his lap.

“Thank you,” you tell the waitress, whose face is flushed up to her ears as she sets down your plates. You clear out the lump in your throat, hoping you sound as apologetic as you are.

“Of course,” she says, voice trailing as her eyes fall to where Thor is scenting the side of your throat.

“Sorry…” you mutter on a quiet sigh as her gaze lingers on Thor and then you as she backs two steps and then turns and leaves.

“Thor,” you sigh, tilting your jaw as he rubs his mouth over your pulse. Breath hitching at the touch of his teeth to the skin on the back of your neck. “We’re in public.”

His hands tighten around your waist and he rumbles in reluctant acquiescence. He lets you wiggle off of his thighs, sliding down to the hard plastic of the booth bench. Your left knee remains hooked over his thigh and his big hand settles over it, keeping you close.

“Thank you,” you smile, bumping him with your shoulder when he makes a teasing grumpy sound, turning his gaze from you to his plate of food with some effort.

You stir a spoon through your cup of soup and pull in a deep breath of the smell. It’s a combination you haven’t had since you were a child and the scent brings you back to a time when you were small and safe and loved. Not unlike now, you think as you look over at Thor as he wraps his hands around his overstuffed sandwich.

You eat in a companionable silence, dipping your sandwich into your soup and eating it in large bites. Your stomach is only just now beginning to adjust to the near constant feeling of satiety, able to handle larger and larger portions of food before becoming uncomfortably full.  

Still, by the time your bowl is scraped clean and you’re brushing crumbs from your fingers, you feel overly stuffed and sleepy. Turning your face into the sunlight streaming across the booth like a cat.

You rest your head on Thor’s shoulder and close your eyes as he flags down the waitress and pays. Cataloging the scratch of his denim jacket against your cheek as you take slow, steady breaths.

A gentle squeeze on your knee rouses you, a minute or an hour later, you’re not sure.

Thor is looking down at you, his face lit by the afternoon sun. When you smile sleepily up at him, his eyes crease around the edges.

“We should go,” he says. “We’ve got ground to make up on the road.”

“I’m going to nap in the truck,” you admit, hiding a yawn behind your hand.

“Good,” he says, holding down a hand to help you from the booth.

You make a point to shoot the waitress an apologetic wave as you leave and she returns it with an awkward, halting wave back. Her eyes tracking you as you walk out with Thor, tucked securely under his arm and facing into the bitter wind. 

 

 

You end up stretched out on the truck seat, the center armrest between your seats pulled down to make a bench. Your head is pillowed on Thor’s lap, cheek resting on his thigh. Blinking slower and slower as the soft melody from the radio lulls you closer and closer to rest.

You’ve been on the road for a while now, a few hours since the travel plaza and your hair is dry where Thor is running his fingers through it.

An oldies station is the only good radio out here, a raspy man’s voice accompanied by a piano and string band weaving through your tired mind. Wrapping around you like a warm blanket, weighing you down on the bench like gravity.

A thought occurs to you slowly.

“Why did you say ‘good’ when I told you I was going to nap?” you ask. Voice heavy with sleep that’s just below the surface. “Back at the cafe…”

His hand moves to rest on the side of your neck. Fingers warm. He shrugs as his thumb strokes over your pulse point, beating slow and steady.

“Is my company that bad?” you tease, bumping his thigh with your nose.

He snorts out a soft chuckle, fingers edging into the roots of your hair at the back of your neck.

He doesn’t answer for a long moment and your eyes fall shut again. Shifting a little on the bench, rubbing your cheek against the warmth of his thigh.

The hum of the highway rushing below you is soothing, a continuous rumble that echoes in your ears and makes your breath deepen in your chest.

“When I first found you, you were so afraid,” he says, softly, finally. Thoughtfully, like he’s remembering it.

Your eyes open, looking up at his face. He’s staring out the windshield as his fingers rub gently against your scalp.

“I couldn’t believe you were able to sleep that first day. Your heart was beating so hard. I could hear it from across the cab.” His eyes fall to yours for a lingering moment before returning out the windshield. “That you passed out right away just showed me how exhausted you were. How much you’d been through.”

You eyes get caught up in the dark fan of his lashes from your view below. Thick like palm fronds.

“I was never afraid of you.”

His fingers tighten for a moment around the back of your skull, comfortingly. “I know, pup. I just…” He lets out a quiet exhale. “I’m glad that you’re safe. That you trust me enough for this.”

You smile and rub your nose against his thigh. Sleep weighing at your eyelids, lulled deeper by the cinnamon spice of his scent, thick in the air around you.

“You found me,” you murmur, eyes falling closed on a sigh.

You can’t see but know that he nods above you, his fingers still carding gently through your hair.

“You’ve got me,” you say. Voice a whisper as sleep starts to close in around the corners of your mind.

“I do, pup,” he says above you. His thumb strokes softly underneath your jaw. “I’ve got you.”

 

 

That night, you use the little bathroom after him, Taking your time to brush your teeth and hair. To splash cold water on your face and wipe at the corners of your eyes. Prodding at your cheeks to test the extra fill there, even after only a few days of regular meals.

When you squeeze out the narrow door and into the dark hall, you see Thor. Stretched all out on the bed on top of the blankets, only in his underwear. Lit softly by the in-line lights along the headboard, his arm thrown over his face.

You approach quietly, stripping down until you’re in a t-shirt and underwear. Wanting not to wake him if he’s drifted off.

But the first dip of the mattress under your weight has him grunting softly and dropping his arm. Searching for you in the dim light and reaching for you when he finds you.

You crawl to him and settle on his lap, a knee on either side of his hips. He hums, deep and content when you settle your weight on him there, his hands coming up to frame your waist. Blinking slowly up at you in the darkness.

His hands on your hips grip and release, one of his thumbs catching on warm, bare skin underneath your shirt, and you sigh. You lean down over him and press a kiss to his cheek, then his lips, your hair falling down around you like a curtain.

When you pull back and place your palms on the flat planes of his chest, he rubs his thumb against that sliver of skin on your hip. You watch his nose lift on the air, just a subtle little scenting, and his hands flex again around you.

“How long do you have?” he asks. Voice rough with sleep, and something else.

He doesn’t need to clarify.

“It’s not due for weeks,” you whisper.

Your heat.

His lets out a quiet breath and shifts beneath you, rocking you like an ocean wave. His nose lifts on the air again.

“You’re sure?” he asks.

You let your fingertips dig into the warm skin of his chest and then release. Feeling the thump of his heart under your palms. “I...don’t know.”

You wonder if that’s part of it, the way you’ve been feeling. For him. If maybe your heat is trickling in slowly this time, sneaking in around the edges of your senses without you realizing it.

You tilt your hips against his, leaning on your hands and feeling him there. So strong between your legs.

“Will you touch me then?” you ask, a tremor going through your fingers against his chest.

You hear him let out a breath through his nose. A quiet, controlled exhale.

“Yes,” he whispers. “When the time is right.”

A warmth flares in your belly at the feel of him beneath you. At the promise of things to come. “When will the time be right?”

His hands grip your hips again and release just as fast, like he can’t stop himself. His eyes are reflecting the lights in the headboard, nearly glowing.

“When you need me,” he says.

You suppress a shudder and lean down to kiss him again, a hot, fleeting press of lips in the dark.

“You’ll be here?” you ask. Voice starting to tremble. “When it comes, you’ll take care of me?”

His hands vice around your hips hard, body going rigid for a blistering moment. He lets out another breath. Shaky with the force of his conviction.

“ _Yes._ ”

He reaches up for you and pulls you from his lap. Hands consciously gentling on you as he lays you beside him and crowds up behind you. Rubbing his nose along the back of your neck, opening his mouth there and tasting you.

You shiver and let your eyes fall closed, rocking back against the strong line of his body. Baring your throat to him as he nips gently at the skin over your shoulder.

He sounds pained when he murmurs into your skin, “You don’t have weeks, pup.”

Your blood is heating in your veins at the feel of him against you, and you nod against the pillow. Knowing in the deepest part of you that he’s right.

Your trembling fingers close over his arm around your waist in the dark, feeling for the steady beat of his pulse to use as an anchor as you feel your heart trip over itself in your chest.

The strength of his arm around you is a promise, and you cling to it. Leaning back against the radiating heat of his chest and squeezing your eyes closed. Reaching out for the heavy pull of sleep, preferring the deep dark nothingness of it to the petrifying unknown of the days to come.

 

 

_Your sleep is a hot, restless thing. Dreaming in dark, feverish shapes and flashes of colored light that sizzle and burn through your veins._

_You feel weightless, floating in a murky cloud. Reaching out with seeking fingers for something. Someone._

_For Thor._

_All of your senses have combined, just one writhing mass of feeling that has you keening into air that is heavy with intent and tension._

_He’s there with you. Out of your sight, but you can feel his presence around you. Until all at once, he’s with you._

_You feel him everywhere, the press and slide of warm skin where your bodies meet and separate, and you call for him, your voice dying in your throat before you can get it out._

_You’re burning from the inside, like your spine is made of glowing embers, and you reach for him in the dark. Knowing, somehow, that he’s what you need. That he is what will get you through this._

_He is a weighted spectre around you. Surrounding you, pulling you tight and grounding you to him. Keeping you from floating away, off into the yawning abyss that is surrounding you._

_“Thor,” you whisper and you hear him whisper for you in turn. The press of his mouth to your neck is iron-hot and jolts you -_

-and you wake with a rattling gasp, lurching where you’re laying on his bed. Sweat beaded up around your temple and under your arms, heat radiating from where Thor’s arms are banded around your waist.

You pant into the warm air of the cab, blinking your unseeing eyes until the faint light of an early sunrise adjusts slowly into view.

It’s morning, and it takes a long, harried moment for sleep to clear from your mind.

You’ve kicked the blankets onto the floor and your bare legs are tangled with Thor’s.

He’s behind you, stretched out like a sleeping lion, throwing off heat like a furnace where he’s pressed against your back.

You shiver on a soft groan when you shift and feel him against you. The soft nudge of his stiff cock against the curve of your ass sends ripples of arousal down your spine, making you shudder against him.

Your skin feels two sizes too small for your body, uncomfortable and itchy, and you tilt your head back until it thumps against Thor’s shoulder. The space between your legs aches like a gash and you rub your thighs together, desperate to relieve the hollow throb there.

Your hand sneaks down past his arm around your waist and under the waistband of your underwear. Your fingers search, reaching, and you let out a shaky whimper when they find a pool of slick at your core.

“Thor,” you cry. Quiet in the hot air of the room. Desperate.

He lets out a soft exhale and settles closer, his nose sliding against the curve of your shoulder.

Need is simmering in your veins, nearly painful in intensity. You’re not in heat - not yet - but the feeling is similarly devastating as your hand up by your face twists into the sheets.

You know, from the last time this fever gripped you, what you need.

Your hips stutter on a broken breath as you feel yourself with soothing fingertips. Seeking out the familiar paths you’ve memorized through the years on quiet shelter beds and scratchy, borrowed sleeping bags on hard-packed floors as you touch yourself where you’re bruised-feeling and soaked.

Your lips part on a hot intake of breath and the smell of Thor all around you makes you feel like a lightning rod. Every nerve ending blazing with the heavy scent of his body pressed up against yours, from the weight and mass and strength of him.

Your touches are firm and sure. Rubbing yourself with a swirling pad of fingertips that makes your toes curl up and your belly muscles tremble. Chasing your release with a desperation you haven’t felt in months, when you were locked in a small room in a dingy homeless shelter and climbing the walls.

Pleasure is a struck match in your belly, all-consuming and flash fire quick, and matched in equal measure with a nauseating distress and need for release. Rising to the surface of your skin and simmering in your blood in a way that makes you feel as if you’re floating away from your own body.

You feel the first pulls of it, the first lapping waves of some building release deep in your core, and you tilt your head back against Thor’s shoulder on a breathless _ahh_ that catches in your throat.

Something shifts, then.

The air ripples and thickens around you and you know in that moment that Thor is awake.

Goosebumps prickle down your arms at the drag of his mouth along the nape of your neck as he sighs himself to consciousness with a nudging nose along your hairline.

Then...everything stills.

You freeze, heart thundering deafeningly in your chest. Your hips twitchy softly against your hand that’s tucked into the front of your underwear.

A moment of tense quiet descends and you feel a hot drag of air on the back of your neck as Thor’s arms tighten around your waist.

The rough scrape of his beard against your nape unfurls something deep in your chest, snaps it free, and you roll against him, pinning your hips back against the hard jut of his cock, moaning his name, barely able to see through the fever -

He moves like a viper strike and your eyes nearly turn back in your head when he flips above you and slots himself between your legs. Collapsing his upper body down over yours, gripping your thighs and rocking his hard cock against cloth over the soaking mess of your sex, sliding into place. To where he needs to be, on instinct.

And it is on instinct. His eyes are blacked out, unseeing even as he stares down at you with rising chest and flaring nostrils.

His left hand is pressed down hard on your sternum, pinning you, and a rattling breath knocks loose from his lungs when you open your legs to him on a whine, slotting him further against you. His right hand drops between you and finds your hand between your legs, pressing down on it hard over the soft fabric of your underwear.

He leans down, a growl gritting past his teeth as he nudges his nose against your jaw and underneath it, knocking against the bone, hard enough to bruise. Setting his teeth on your jugular and rumbling possessively when you suck in a soft gasp and bare your throat further.

You feel like you’re being dragged, kicking and screaming, towards the edge of a cliff and you don’t know what’s on the other side.

“Thor,” you whine, rolling your hips. “Please.”

The pressure from his hand on your chest lifts all at once, quickly, like he’s just realized the force he’s using, and when he pulls back to look at you, you see him there. Present, behind the feral blackness in his eyes.

His hand is still covering yours between your legs and you moan softly when he presses down against the thin fabric of your underwear and your fingers below it. Letting your head fall back against the pillow as you blink up at his face, blood turning syrupy on pheromones that are weighing down the air.

His chest is heaving, mouth falling open as he forces his distant eyes to focus on yours with great effort.

“You need to come,” he says, voice gravel ragged. Like he knows. Like he knows the fire that’s burning in your veins. Like he knows that’s the only way it will extinguish before consuming you whole. That you’ll be sick if you don’t.

You nod, eyes locked to his. Heart galloping frantically in your chest.

He breathes out slowly, through his nose. Nearly trembling with restraint. He leans down and nudge his nose against yours. To press an open mouthed kiss to your cheek and your jaw. Reverent and thrumming with desire.

When he pulls back to look at you, his eyes are dark like burning coals, but sure. 

He nods.

His hand between your thighs closes delicately around your wrist and lifts, pulling your hand out from underneath your underwear. His eyes follow as he pulls your hand up over your belly, his eyes catching as a smear of slick sticks and glistens on that soft skin.

He stares at that little shiny spot for a long moment, licking his lips absently, before his eyes return to yours. A burst of heavy spice in the air is all the warning you get before his hand releases your wrist and sneaks down between your thighs.

His hand slides easily beneath beneath the elastic of your underwear and below, and the first firm rub of his fingers against your sex punches the air out of your lungs.

You lurch on a strangled sound, back lifting off the bed, and he steadies you with a gentle palm on your sternum as his fingers dip low to gather up wet before he finds the crest of your sex with fingertips and starts a slow, swirling rhythm

“ _Ohh,_ ” you whisper, your eyes falling shut at the feeling. Your hips twitching against his hand. “ _Y-yeah_.”

His fingers are so much bigger than yours. So much rougher with callous and work. When your eyes open again, he’s watching you with drawn brows and a flush that’s creeping up his throat under his beard.

You reach for him, heart tripping at his expression. Touching at his cheek, slick fingers petting at his beard, even as your hips roll against his hand, seeking.

His eyes flash, mouth dropping open as he turns to seek your hand. Taking your fingers in his mouth and groaning as his lips close around them and he sucks, soft, needy pulses of his mouth. Taking the taste of you right off of your fingers. His hips jut forward, pressing the hard line of his cock against the back of your thigh.

He makes a deep sound in his chest as he lets your fingers fall from his mouth, jostling you with his hips again.

His free hand drops down to press against your belly, pressing you back against the bed, and his hand between your legs drops lower.

Your breath catches on a moan as his thumb takes his finger’s place, rubbing steadily, as his fingers drift lower. Petting through the soaking folds of your cunt, teasing in with the end of his middle finger.

“ _Oh_ ,” you rush out, head thumping back on the pillow at the first feel of him in you. Hips seizing against his hand as a tingling pressure begins to build in your gut. Beginning to light and swirl and spark along your veins.

You’re close already, your blood thrumming in your veins from his very first touch. Ready to burst from only this, the rough press of his hand against you and nothing more. You feel the first flicker of it, a tiny little flame of pleasure starting to crest in your belly, and you chase it, hips working openly against the rhythm of his hand.

He’s watching you, nostrils flaring on every breath. Sweat gathering along his temple as he takes in and lets out shaky breaths.

It occurs to you, all at once, that he needs to come, too.

The sudden slide of Thor’s middle finger into you, fitting deep and thick, locks your spine rigid, and you arch into him, holding your breath frantically as the tension inside of you quivers and quivers and spirals up like a lightning strike.

And then his thumb swirls over you again, hard, and something snaps in you like a rubber band.

The earth stills for one, long, blistering moment. And then everything rushes in all at once. Breaking like a levee that can no longer contain swollen flood waters, a flash and flood of movement and surging power.

Pleasure shorts out every neuron in your brain and you let yourself go to it. Giving yourself over completely to the wrench of electricity through every bone and fiber as your muscles lock and then turn to rubber and you collapse back on the bed.

You’re making sounds you can’t even hear, as your body shudders through it, your hands fisting in the sheets as your hips rise off the bed and shove against Thor’s hand.

His big hands close over your hips and steady you, easing you back down against the bed with soothing touches. Your head collapses back on the pillow, weak, your eyelids fluttering.

Your hands find his around your waist and cover them, feeling blindly with your eyes fallen shut. Stroking over the soft backs of his hands and curling around the strong bones of his wrists. Hips rolling softly on a weak, relieved sigh as your body wracks and shudders through it.

It feels like falling from a great height in the sweetest way, headfirst and dizzying. Clinging to him as firing neurons replace with syrupy pleasure that weighs down your limbs like they’re made of stone.

You whisper to him, things that don’t make any sense but are how you feel. How you want him to carry you far, far away and lay you down in a field of wildflowers. How he is the sun and you are the moon - destined lovers on opposite sides of the world. How you want him to break you in half and devour you whole, to suck you down like bone marrow. How you want him to fill you up with his children, make you heavy with them.

When you’ve come down from it, your mind sets adrift like dandelion fluff on a breeze. Floating. Unfocused, but impossibly warm. Everything is warm and yellow in the early light of the morning.

Thor’s scent is an embrace, curling around your shoulders and brushing up on your cheeks, and the presence of him, hovering somewhere above you, makes emotion stir up thick in your chest.

You think of the last time you’d felt the devastating pull of arousal like that. Months ago, locked securely away, clawing at the walls and yourself, finding hollow release after hollow release that left you desperate and unfulfilled and frantic.

Your conversation with him last night comes back to you, hazily. You remember that Thor will be here for you, when your next heat hits. That you’ll feel his body over yours and feel him moving inside of you. That you’ll ache around the stretch of his knot, buried deep, as he spends in you again and again. That he’ll bring you around at the end of it with gentle touches and soothing kisses and murmured praise.

That maybe, you’ll never have to experience the devastation of a heat alone again.

The thought is nearly too much to bear.

Distantly, you’re aware of Thor rearranging you. Opening your knees and running his hands down your shins, and you let him move you. Boneless underneath his hands.

The slide of your underwear down your thighs feels like a physical release and you sigh, shifting against his hands. Eyes still blissfully closed as you float, anchored only to the bed and consciousness by your hand gripping his wrist, feeling his pulse beat wildly under your fingertips.

You feel movement below, then, and big, warm hands pressing on the insides of your thighs. Parting them and making room.

The bed shifts and the air moves, and then your voice shatters on a moan as you feel Thor lean in and press his mouth lovingly to your sex.

You force your eyes open, caught in a whirling riptide of emotion and arousal, and the sight of him between your legs makes the bottom fall out of your belly.

His eyes are closed, eyelashes fanned out on his cheeks as he kisses you there, reverent and soft as he tastes you with soothing strokes of his tongue. Breathing through his nose like he’s overwhelmed with it all, color rising up on his cheeks under his beard.

“ _Thor_ ,” you whimper, your fingers finding his hair and gripping in.

His hands grip around your waist, pulling you against him. Rolling his face against you, exultant in the smell and taste of you. Groaning quietly into the soft skin of your thigh when he comes up for a breath, pressing an open mouthed, sticky kiss there.

His eyes find yours and a shudder rolls down your spine. Your twine your fingers deeper in his hair, hips twitching when he leans down to press a soft kiss against your soaking cunt.

“Can you go again?” he asks. Voice rough with raw desire.

“I - ,” He leans down and closes his mouth over you, eyes falling closed again, and a soft _ahh_ falls from your lips. Tilting against his mouth and panting quietly.

“I want you to,” Thor murmurs. Closing his teeth around the meat of your thigh, gently. “I want you to come again.”

He lowers his mouth to you again, gentle as he flattens his tongue and strokes over the part of you that is quivering and hot to the touch.

He eats you out slowly. Devoutly. Feasting on you with a hot velvet slide of tongue and lips, making pleased, soft little grunts of pleasure when your hips twitch and jolt between his hands.

You watch as his hips bunch against the bed and the scent of him is overpowering. A heady musk that’s all possession and claim that sits heavy on the back of your tongue.

Your mouth flushes with saliva at a thought, sudden and overwhelming. That he’s hard right now. For you. That he’s hard and fucking his hips against the mattress because putting his mouth on your center is enough to bring him there. Like the taste of you at your core is enough to get him to that precipice.

You wonder what he tastes like. How his cock would feel against your lips and on your tongue. How hot his cum would be. How heavy.

“ _Fu-u--_ ” you cry, a broken whisper into the hot air.

You’re reduced to gasped syllables and breathless affirmations, your fingers curling around his ear as your hips ride gently against his face. Setting a sweet, rolling rhythm that has another release just there. Just out of reach.

“I want you,” you whisper, holding his gaze when he looks up at you as he works you with soothing tongue. “I want you so badly.”

Tears prick at your eyes, stupidly, and you blink them away with a shake of your head. Seeing the way his eyes soften as he reads you and not wanting him to stop.

You feel something then. Something stirring in the air like an invisible force, a connected charge between you.

His mouth is working against you, lips closing around the crest of your sex and sucking with soft pulses, but you hear it plain as day. As clearly as if he’d said it aloud.

_You have me._

It jarrs you. Takes you by such surprise that you forget for one fleeting moment that you’re trying to hold on, trying to stay here, wanting this to last, and that second of lost focus undoes you.

A hard pulse of his mouth sends a bolt of pleasure through you and the coil in your belly clenches tight tight tight and then gives. A gentle tip over the edge, a welcome, warm rush that you reach for with both hands.

This one is softer than the one before. Less frantic and desperate. More...sinful. Done not for need to clear your body of the first few tingles of heat, but for no purpose other than to make your head tip back in syrupy pleasure. To make your fingers fist up in his hair and pull.

When your vision clears, slow, dust mote shapes drifting in the morning light, he’s watching you. Cheek resting on your thigh as his fingers pet against you where you’re soaked and shaking. Featherlight but enough to make you shiver at every pass.

His eyes are still dark, nearly all black even as sunlight peeks around the edges of the curtains. It makes him look nearly feral as your fingers stroke through his hair.

There’s a softness to his expression as he regards you, blinking slowly. Warm with clear contentment, a bone-deep satisfaction from having provided for you. Given you what you needed.

Your heart thrums, chest aching with a drive to care for him in kind, and you hand falls to his shoulders and tugs him up.

He moves under your hand, indulging you as he always does. Allowing you to pull him up your body until he’s hovering over you, a hand next to your head holding his body over yours.

Your eyes fall to the hard line of his cock in his shorts and it startles you. Making your heart lurch and stutter in your chest at the sight of it.

You whine, breath punching out of your lungs. Reaching up to claw at his shoulders, a burst of arousal clutching at your throat.

A flare of heat licks in your veins and you nearly seize against him with it.

He dips down you you quickly, pressing you down against the bed. Soothing you with kisses pressed to your cheeks, murmuring quiet words of assurance.

“ _Please_ ,” you cry, opening your legs for him. Nearly weeping when he slots into place between them.

He shakes his head and presses you down against the bed again, pressing hard, open mouthed kisses to your jaw.

“I won’t,” he says against your skin, feverish, “I won’t.”

Even as the words leave his mouth, you’re reaching low and tugging down his briefs with  hard hands and he’s not stopping you. Setting teeth on the edge of your jaw as his hips lurch, bumping the fever hot skin of him against your wrist.

You’re nodding, your hand closing around his cheek. Pulling him down to you, mouths meeting in a clash of teeth and lips.

You hear him grunt softly when he takes himself in hand and you moan, breathless against his mouth when you feel him rub the silky head of his cock against the soft swell of your belly.

You cling to him, arms curled tight around his shoulders as he works himself, hands hard as he brings himself off with a tightly curled fist. Teething at your jaw and then down your neck and throat, making guttural growls against your reddened skin. Quiet, like he doesn’t even realize he’s making them.

You hold him as he lurches against you on fevered breaths, chest surging with a drive to protect that you don’t understand. Needing, somehow, with everything you are, to bring him release.

The air clouds over, fogging up between you on overwhelming spice, and you bite at the skin of his shoulder at the first splash of hot cum up over your chest, hard enough to break the skin.

He groans, ragged and pained as jerks against you, shoving you up the bed underneath him. His hips finally stilling on a strained moan as he spills and spends all over you. Copious, heavy cum that singes the skin where it lands.

You’re moaning too, softly. Clutching him close still, guiding his face to yours. Bringing his mouth to yours and opening for him. Trading soft, trembling kisses back and forth as he shudders through the throes of it, gritting his teeth against it.

Relief rushes over you like an ocean wave, moving in the tide of his body as he lays himself down beside you. His big hand curling around the hinge of your jaw as he cradles you close, pressing his forehead to yours.

You curl into him, nosing at his throat. Shoving at him almost, wanting to be nearer. To be a part of him somehow, and he responds in kind. Getting a tight arm around your waist and pulling you snug against him.

“Thor,” you murmur. A shiver wracks your body, the last tremor of an incredible high, and you press your lips to his shoulder. Needing to anchor yourself to him to remain in your own body.

His fingers tangle in your hair, tilting your head back and scraping his beard roughly across your throat. His voice is a fiercely intimate thing when he sighs and nudges his nose under your jaw. Whispers against your skin, “ _Pup_.” 

 

 

You drift in and out of consciousness, exhaustion rushing into you and filling all of the empty space where your desperation and desire had spun you up tight and then wrenched out of you by Thor.

He’s there with you, scenting you lazily. His hand is spread out over your belly as he drags his beard across the juncture of your neck and shoulder, the wet part of his open lips catching and burning your skin.

You go to turn in his arms, to face him, and he lets you. Holding his arms open and letting you curl against him. You nudge your nose against his, breathing in the weight of his scent in the space between you. Feeling the possession in it in your core, a new, earthy undercurrent that feels like upturned dirt in the spring.

You feel him now. You alway have, but it’s different somehow. It’s buried somewhere deep inside of you now. Some invisible bond, rooting you to him. Thrumming quietly, but steadily. Easy to miss, unless you know where to look. How to see it catching in the light, tugging on your ribs when he shifts on the bed.

You bring your hand up to him, curling your hand around his cheek, and you feel the slide of his eyes to yours like a physical force.

You drift, eyes opening and closing against the sun that’s slowly rising in the sky. Cutting a sharp line of light across the bed that’s moving up and up your bodies as the minutes tick by.

When the sun reaches your face, cutting across your cheeks, making you turn away from the window and into him, you murmur a soft question into his throat. Asking about the time, and Thor groans softly. Tilting your jaw up and kissing underneath it.

“We should,” he agrees at last. “We’ll need to make up ground.”

He gets up from the bed in halting stages, propping himself up on his elbows but leaning back down to you immediately, kissing your cheeks before pushing himself up all the way with some effort.

He stands by the bed for a long moment, watching you as he roots around blindly for jeans and a shirt which he tugs on with rough hands. Impatient, almost, and he lingers in the doorway of the bedroom, looking down at you and then down the hall of the truck, then back to you.

He scrubs a hand over his beard. “I have to...get us ready to get going.”

You feel the loss of his body next to yours like the loss of a limb, but you curl in on yourself and stop yourself from going after him.

You nod. “Okay.” Trying to be reasonable even as your heart screams at you to be anything but.

You can see the tic in his jaw from where you’re lying, the tension there. The naked conflict in his features as he struggles to force himself to walk down the short hallway of the cab to the doors.

“It’ll only be a minute,” he says, and you nod again. Say “okay” again, though it comes out a little wobbly.

There is a fierceness in his eyes that you feel reflected back at you, a lit ember somewhere in your chest, followed by a sharp clutch of discomfort when he forces himself down the hall away from you.

The slam of the driver’s door echoes, and you pull the blankets around your shoulders in tight like a cocoon. Rubbing your nose against it and taking in deep, comforting pulls of his scent which is embedded in the fabric.

You stay there, sucking in deep lungfuls of him to steady your aching heart. Losing all track of time until the bed dips under his weight, and you turn towards him blindly. Reaching for him, whispering his name.

He covers your body with his, pressing his face to yours, his cheeks still chilled from the cold. Gathering you close with one arm around your waist and puffing out hot little breaths as he breathes you in and rubs his beard against your jaw.

“How long were you gone?” you ask, fingers clutching at him, trying to get yourself closer to him though you’re pressed tightly together.

The truck is rumbling quietly beneath you. Running now, ready to hit the highway.

He shakes his head slowly, opening his mouth over your throat and tasting you with hot, wet kisses. “I don’t know,” he says. “It...felt like forever. A few minutes, probably.”

He scents you thoroughly, almost a little desperate. Like he has to make up for any loss of his scent in the moments he was away.

He grunts softly against the juncture of your shoulder. “I’m sorry, pup. I don’t…” He nudges his forehead against yours. “My instincts are going all haywire. I don’t want to leave you.”

You shudder out a shivering sigh as your fingers grip in his hair at the touch of his teeth to the back of your neck. “Me either,” you admit, achingly.

His hand wraps gently around your throat, lovingly as he nuzzles against your ear and into your hair.

You tug gently on his hair and pull him back to look at him, and the sight of him makes something fierce and intimate flex along the bond between you.

His eyes are impossibly bright, shining rings of blue around large, black pupils. He’s looking at you like his heart is breaking, emotion warring over his features, like he’s only just stopping himself from pinning you down and scenting you more.

“We have to get going.” He sounds regretful.

“Okay,” you say, your hand caressing his cheek. Wanting desperately to pull him back to you. “Take me with you, then.”

He blinks, leaning into your hand. “Now?” he asks. Looking at your state of undress even as you’re wrapped up in a blanket.

A smile twists on your face. Fondness making your heart lurch behind your ribs. “Okay, pants first. Then, take me with you.”

He smiles then too, the first time since he’s been awake that morning. Happiness softening his features a little as he sits up with some effort and finds a clean pair of your underwear in one of the drawers.

He unwraps the blankets from your bottom half and guides the underwear over both ankles and up your shins with gentle hands, tugging on them to get them over the curve of your ass when you lift it off the bed for him.

He gives your sex a possessive, soft pet over the fabric, a fleeting, quiet moment, before he’s fishing up your leggings from the floor and carefully slipping them over your feet and up your legs.

You sit up slowly when they’re up over your hips, leaning against him for support which he wordlessly gives.

“You’re good?” he asks, cupping your jaw. Eyeing you searchingly, and you can’t stop yourself from leaning in and kissing him. Just a soft, chaste press of lips.

“Yeah,” you breathe against him. “I’m good.”

He looks at you for a long moment, blinking slowly as he takes his fill of your face, before he turns and looks down the narrow hall of the cab. “I’d carry you,” he admits on a small smile. “But I don’t think we’ll fit. Can you walk?”

A laugh snorts out of you, a grin splitting your face. “You’re not _that_ good, Thor. I can walk.”

He chuckles and raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t believe you, but he stands and holds out a hand for you. Taking your hand in his and pulling you to your feet, making a satisfied sound deep in his chest when your knees wobble and you tip against his chest for balance.

He leads you to the front of the cab and angles himself onto the driver’s seat, holding his arms out for you.

You sit yourself carefully down his lap and let out a quiet sigh as his arms wrap around you to wrap his hands around the steering wheel. It’s a snug fit, the two of you between the seat and the dash, but it’s more comforting than it has any right being.

He rearranges you carefully, distributing your weight so you’re settled securely on his thighs, and you run the edge of your nose along the soft fabric of his shirt over his chest. Nuzzling against him gently and indulgently, feeling your heart trip and swell and the strong thrum of the bond between you. Contented and warm and fierce in the lack of space between you.

Thor reaches down to shift the truck into drive and bumps his cheek against yours on his way back up. Affection radiating in the warmth of his scent and the strong frame of his arms around you.

After a few minutes of maneuvering and care, he pulls the truck out of the lot and onto the road, easing onto the gas to get it up to speed.

The truck rumbles beneath you, strong and steady and in time with the healthy beat of his heart in his chest under your cheek.

“Sleep if you want, pup,” he murmurs. You can’t see but you can feel his eyes drop down to you and then back out the windshield.

“I do want,” you reply, a yawn thickening up in your throat. Feeling cozy and drunk at the intensity of his scent all around you. “Can you believe it? We just woke up.”

He chuckles and you feel the vibrations against your skin. “I can believe it,” he says, voice coloring on a smile. “Sleep. I’ll wake you when I see somewhere to stop for breakfast.”

“Mmm,” you whisper, rubbing your cheek against his chest, eyes falling closed. “Breakfast.”

Another chuckle, and his arms squeeze gently around you. “Sleep first, then breakfast.”

“Okay,” you agree sleepily. Sighing again and settling in against him.

Lulled by the hum of the truck over the road and the steady beat of his heart, sleep finds you quickly. Clouding around the edges of your consciousness like a dark cloud, slowly at first, and then all at once.

You give yourself over to it without struggle, leaning into the darkness without fear, knowing that Thor will be there for you when you wake.


	3. Chapter 3

A gentle nudge of a whiskered chin against your hair wakes you sometime later, and you blink against the bright glare of sunlight in the cab, opening your eyes to the thick, dark beard covering Thor’s throat. 

You groan softly, contentedly, and stretch a little, bumping up against the steering wheel in his lap. He shifts underneath you to accommodate you as you settle back against him. 

“Thank you,” you murmur past a yawn. “I would have slept all day.” A glance at the clock on the dash shows it’s been a little over an hour since you’d fallen asleep. 

He laughs at that softly, like he knows it’s true. “We’ve got to make up some time on the road,” he says, his hand not on the wheel curling around you with a gentle squeeze. “I’ve got some fruit back there in the fridge. You should eat.” 

“We should eat,” you correct on a warm sigh, rubbing your face against the soft material of his hoodie. Warm and heavy still with sleep and not quite ready to get up. You hum when his hand comes up to pet at your hair, his fingers scratching against your scalp. 

You can feel the bond still, an ever-present thrum between you like a thrumming live wire, but it’s less urgent now. Less desperate and needy. More secure than before, perhaps. More sure. 

You sit for a moment in his lap, listening to the soft melody of the radio before you feel his stomach grumble beneath you. You groan, then, and carefully untangle yourself from the mess of blanket and ease off of his thighs reluctantly. 

You cover another yawn and steady yourself with a hand on his shoulder when your knees knock uselessly together. It brings you close to him, standing over him, and you can’t stop yourself from leaning down. Curling your arm around his shoulder and nudging your nose along the shell of his ear. Breathing in the scent in his hair and letting your eyes fall shut at the warm comfort it blooms in your chest. 

His hand comes up to cover yours on his shoulder, warm and dry, and he turns his head to face you. Bumping his nose against yours and opening his mouth over yours for the briefest of kisses before turning back to face the road on a quiet, reluctant sound. 

You relent after a lingering moment, pushing up from his shoulder and yawning again. “In the fridge?” you ask, and he nods, sparing a soft smile up at you before looking back at the road.

You go, your bare feet quiet on the tile of the hall, bending low to open the fridge  and scoop out what’s inside into your arms. You hobble back to the front seat, sitting heavily on the bench next to Thor, letting the contents in your arms fall out on your lap. Two apples, an orange, something that looks like a pear but isn’t, a bruised banana, and a bottle of water. 

You scoot over close to him and he roots through the food for a moment before picking one of the apples, dark red and shiny in his hand. He takes a hearty bite and your eyes draw helplessly to the sheen of juice on his lips when he pulls it away. 

You eat in a companionable silence, your knee bumping against his as the truck rumbles over the road. You shrug the blanket wrapped around your shoulders down so its pooling around your waist and choose the orange, digging into the peel with your fingernails. 

You feel his eyes on the side of your face, a quiet glance before he looks back at the road, and you look to him, sucking on an orange slice. 

He smiles softly, eyes crinkling around the edges. All warm and fond for you, but there’s some tension there. Some quiet concern in the way his eyes flick between your face and the road. 

“How do you feel, pup?” he asks. 

You suck on another piece of orange and shiver at the tart of it. “Good,” you say, nodding. Bumping your knee against his, smiling back. “Warm.” 

He hmms softly to himself, bumping your knee back under the steering wheel. You see his nose lift, just a soft tilt on the air, and you feel a little shudder roll down your spin. 

You can feel him scenting the air, a tug somewhere deep in your chest. Your heart starting to thud under your ribs at the sensation.

You rub the pad of your thumb against the dimpled rind of the orange thoughtfully. Your mind drifts back to your last heat. How you’d had so little warning, waking up on a bench in a Greyhound bus station, your head already swimming with the murkiness of it. Making your heart lurch heavily in your chest as you stumbled to your feet, swaying and leaning heavily against the wall. Mind turning frantically to retrace your steps to the shelter you’d stayed at the night prior. Knowing they had a secure room they were legally obligated to offer you, if you were in heat and vulnerable.

It had come out of nowhere - you’d been clear headed when you’d gone to sleep, head propped up against the hard plastic of the bench. 

This is different, you think, your eyes drifting to him next to you. Taking in the strength of his profile as he watches the road, the midday sun warming his features. 

You can feel your heat, but it's a distant thing. A warm, prickly tingle around the edges of your senses. You body is giving you plenty of warning this time, it seems. 

You lick the last orange juice from your lips and look out the windshield, squinting into the sun. Mountains are out in the far distance. Gray, jagged peaks that rise up from the ground like angry spikes from the earth’s crust. 

“I’ve never seen mountains,” you say.

You can hear Thor’s responding smile. 

He makes a thoughtful, pleased sound. “We’ll drive through them this afternoon,” he says, smoothing his palm over the curve of the steering wheel. “You’ll see. They’re amazing.” 

You let your head thunk back against the headrest and look at him, feeling your face twist up happily, contentedly at the sight of him. You feel like your insides are made of clouds. 

“You like the mountains?” you ask. Reaching over to run your fingertips over the pulse in his wrist where it rests on his denimed thigh. 

He nods. “Of all the routes I drive, this is my favorite.” 

Your index finger strokes softly over the steady heartbeat on the thick of his wrist, soothing the skin there. Warming it under your touch. 

Your eyes fall there, to the contrast of his skin against yours. “Your favorite,” you repeat, softly. Savoring the words on your tongue as the warmth of learning each other blooms behind your ribs like a wildflower. 

He nods again, smiling at you and then looking back at the road. “There’s a place I want to take you for lunch. It’s a few hours west of here. They serve the best tacos.”

His hand turns on his thigh, facing up, and yours slides easily into it. 

Your face twists, incredulous. “Do you know where we are right now? Like, actually know?” 

The view through the windshield is barren, featureless grasslands, the distant specter of mountains in the distance the only focal point for miles. You can’t even remember the last road sign you saw. 

He chuckles softly, eyes creasing around the edges. “Yeah, pup. I told you. It’s my favorite route.” 

You watch his thumb stroke across the back of your palm and feel the bond thrum quietly between you. Contentedly, like a whispered secret. Your thumb rubs against the back of his hand, bumping along each of his knuckles in turn.

You feel the bond warm on a tingle, a quiet exhale of fondness you can nearly taste, and when you look up, Thor looks quickly out the windshield again, his lips twitching on a smile. Caught looking and a little sheepish. 

You laugh, a throaty, soft chuckle, and his cheeks round on a responding grin. 

You wonder what it will feel like if he claims you. Your mind turns slowly on the idea as you grip gently at his hand. You wonder how this faint, simmering connection compares to the force of a full claiming bond, the kind you’d heard about since you were little. 

You let your gaze lift from your joined hands and up his chest, settling on the profile of his face, partially shadowed in the rising afternoon sun. Blinking slowly at the indulgent sight of him. 

His hand grips yours again, a comforting little pulse, and you know then that you’ll ask him to. That you’ll ask him to give you that gift. 

You wonder, as you lean over to rest your head against the strength of his shoulder and he hums quietly in response, if he’ll say yes. 

 

 

Your stomach is churning with uncharacteristic hunger when Thor perks up at a sign along the road a few hours later. 

“There it is,” he says, nodding to the weathered, wooden sign that’s fast approaching. The sign is so faded that you can’t even read the large, red lettering, but Thor inclines his head and says, “Best tacos in Colorado.” 

You pull your feet down from under you to rest on the floor, sitting fully upright. Pressed against his side where you’re sat in the middle of the bench. 

Your movement causes a soft, decadent puff of his scent to brush against your cheek, and you turn your nose into it instinctively. 

He looks over at you. “Could you eat, pup?” 

You nod quickly. “I’m starving,” you say, rubbing a palm over your belly. “I can’t believe it. We ate just a few hours ago.” 

His eyes linger on you before he looks out the windshield again. “It’s the heat.” 

You nod. “Yeah, I think so. I could eat a bear.” 

That pulls a smile out of him. “We’ll see what we can find you. Can’t promise a bear.” 

You turn your nose to him again, nudging it along the soft t-shirt over his shoulder. Breathing him in on a long breath and feeling the scent of him thicken up in your bloodstream. 

He’s starting to change, too. You part your lips against his arm as you take another breath, your eyes falling shut. 

His scent is deeper than before. Heavier on your tongue as you nuzzle against the warmth of his shoulder. Wilder, like it belongs on a feral creature rather than a man. Like he’d devour you, if he could. 

You wonder if he feels it, too. The way you’re feeling the faint tickle of it at the edge of your senses. You wonder if he feels himself deepening and broadening for you. Taking up more of the driver’s seat as he spreads his legs a little more, looking over at you. His scent starting to drip masculinity and drive, with the need to provide for you. 

Your eyes open at the touch of his hand and you find him smiling softly at you as his hand covers yours. 

You bring his hand up and press a kiss to it, your eyes falling shut again. Feeling the bond thrum quietly behind your ribs like a low, electric current. 

He pulls off at an exit soon after, maneuvering the truck and trailer carefully along a long, concrete curb alongside the road. Off the road a ways, walled in weathered timber, is a small building with a blinking open sign in the front window in the shape of a sombrero. 

He cuts the engine after a moment, slipping out of his seatbelt and down through the driver’s seat smoothly, coming around to your side to open your door. When he holds his arms up for you, you go. Stepping down into his space and wrapping your arms around his neck. 

He takes your weight and steps down to the ground, shutting your door behind you with one hand, wrapping the other underneath your thighs to support you. 

It’s chilly outside, a nippy little bite on the gentle wind. But the breeze carries on it the smell of cooking food and spice, and you find yourself turning towards it, your stomach rumbling angrily as hunger spikes in your belly. 

He places you down onto the ground as he shoves his truck keys into his back pocket, keeping a hand on your lower back as you lift your nose on the air to scent at the decadent smell of browning meat. He laughs at that, softly, fondly, and he nudges his nose against your temple, pulling you in for a quick squeeze of a hug before returning his hand to the base of your back and guiding you forward. 

The steps leading to the front door are stone pavers, set deep into the ground, obscured with patchy yellow grass and the last vestiges of the winter snow. 

He pushes the door open with his shoulder and a bell overhead rings. 

Inside, it’s a small space, filled with little, round tables clustered together under hanging lights, all covered in plastic table coverings in primary colors. A register is set on a pedestal behind a counter on the far wall, and behind it, are dozens of polaroids tacked to the wall with tape. 

A distant greeting is called from somewhere in the back of the restaurant, out of sight.

Thor guides you to a table near a window, his fingers leaving warm traces along your spine as they trail up your back when you sit in the far chair. 

Footsteps sound on the tiled floor, and you startle at a sudden gasping exclamation from behind you. You look up to Thor, but, for once, he’s not looking at you. Beaming instead at the person who just came into the room, showing all of his teeth in a blinding grin. 

“Oye, ahí está!” the person calls. 

You turn in your chair to see a small woman appear from the behind the counter, her apron covered with a dusting of flour. She’s speaking to Thor as she comes to him, going as fast as her feet with take her, and you watch, a little stunned as Thor steps towards her and closes his arms around her in a sweeping hug. Bending down nearly in half to reach her. 

He squeezes her hard enough that she grunts and then laughs, throaty and deep, and he steadies her with hands on her shoulders, his face still split in a bright, familiar smile. 

“Donde has estado niño?” she asks, slapping his arm playfully when he draws back from her. “Te hemos estado esperando!” 

Thor laughs again and shrugs, a little bashful. “Me están manteniendo ocupada! He estado en todas partes - tuve que pedir que me enviaran de vuelta para poder verte!” 

Your brows jump into your hairline at the sight of rapid spanish falling from Thor’s lips as easy as breathing. 

He shifts back towards you as he speaks to her, back and forth, faster than your limited, grade-school spanish education can track, stepping next to where you’re seated and reaching lowly to run the edge of his knuckles between your shoulder blades. Slowly, unconsciously almost. Like he’s drawn to you by gravity and is unable to stay away for long.

The woman’s eyes fall to you at the touch of his hand and her smile is warm. Her eyes sparkle with something that looks like intrigue. 

“Y quién es este?” she asks him, her tone shifting into something that reads teasing. 

Thor exhales on a happy little chuckle, looking down and meeting your eyes. He says something back that you can’t understand.

She makes a thoughtful sound back, her smile curving across her cheeks. “Ella es muy bonita.” 

“Sí, ella es,” Thor says, still looking at you. 

That you understand, and you feel the back of your neck heat as he smiles down at you. 

He bumps you teasingly with his hip and gestures to the woman with an open hand. 

“This is is Maria. She’s fed me on this route for the last ten years.”

You take Maria’s offered handshake, returning her warm smile. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” Maria tells you, sincerely. Her hands are tiny in yours. 

“You too,” you say, nodding. “Thor has told me all about your food.” 

That seems to please her greatly. “Are you hungry?” she asks, giving your hands a last squeeze before releasing them. “Please, sit. I will bring you some food.”

She watches as you sit back down and Thor follow suit, wiping her hands on her apron, her gaze falling back to Thor’s face as you both settle in.

“It’s good to see you,” she says to him, earnestly. Softly. 

He nods, smiling. “It’s been too long.” 

That seems to satisfy her and she pats his shoulder before she turns to go.

“Su orden habitual?” she asks Thor as she walks away behind the counter.

“Mucho,” Thor replies, “Gracias!” 

Thor watches her go and finally returns his gaze to you after a moment, rubbing his hand over his beard. His face still warmed with an echo of a grin. 

He pauses when he sees the look on your face.

“What?” He nudges his foot against yours under the table. 

You raise your eyebrows. “You speak spanish?” 

He huffs a little laugh. “Conversational,” he says, wobbling his flat palm back and forth. “At best.”

“Sounded very conversational,” you murmur, nudging his foot back, biting your lip to stop the dumb smile on your face. “You didn’t say you knew the owner.”

He shrugs easily. “I told you it’s my favorite route. I’ve been coming here for years.”

You nod back, letting your eyes travel around the room. It’s outdated but warm from use and care, the table smoothed under your fingertips from years of customers. 

“She loves you.” 

He smiles again in apparent agreement. “She’s the best. Óscar too. He must be manning the grill in the back.” 

You take a moment to just look at him, at the warm happiness radiating from his very core. He’s always been happy since you’ve known him, but this feels different. Radiant, somehow. So clearly comfortable and welcomed and known here. 

You reach across to touch at his hand where it’s playing lazily with a set of silverware bound up in a napkin with a strip of green paper, letting your eyes go out the window next to you. 

Mountains are an ever-present loom in the distance, darker now than this morning. Close enough that you can see the jagged peaks tipped in snow. You’re a four hour drive from them, probably. Maybe five.

Thor’s hand closes over yours, warm and big, and you let out a quiet breath. Letting the warmth and intimacy of the place and the moment settle in around your bones. 

When you look back, Thor is watching you. His eyes are a startling blue in the afternoon light. 

The bond pulses, invisible between you, and your heart flutters against your ribs. 

Maria appears after a few minutes with arms full of plates, balancing them with a skill that makes you nearly gasp, setting two full water glasses before you and Thor and then placing down steaming plates, one by one, until the entire surface of the table is covered. 

“Holy - “ you murmur, eyes widening at the sheer amount of food. But Thor grins up at Maria, leaning into her hand when she touches it to his cheek. 

“Gracias, Maria,” Thor says, “It’s perfect.” 

Maria rubs her thumb over his bearded cheek and then looks to you, then back to him. “Enjoy,” she says on a smile. 

When she leaves, you look to Thor. Your eyes must be bulging, because he laughs. 

“You need to eat, pup,” he says. “You’ll need your strength.”

You pick up a fork, taking in the different options. “This is more food than I’ve ever seen in one place.”

It’s all sizzling and steaming, a cast iron pan of peppers and onions and chicken, and plates of tacos, chicken and beef, and two oversized burritos, surrounded by heaping servings of rice and beans.

Your stomach growls, loud enough that Thor hears, and he cracks another grin. “Well, we’ll have to fix that,” he says. “Eat up, pup.”

You take a first bite of fajita vegetables, groaning quietly at the taste. You take another bite, and then another. Across the table, Thor is slicing into a steaming burrito and humming appreciatively. 

You eat in easy silence, listening when Maria stops by to top off your water and check on you and she talks to Thor, clearly catching up even though you can only understand every third or fourth word. 

By the time the table is cleared, you feel full to bursting. You’re leaning back in your chair, rubbing your hand over your food-swollen belly. Feeling almost a little sick, but so contented. 

Maria comes over and touches Thor on the shoulder again, a fond, maternal touch. 

“Era bueno?” she asks, and Thor nods. 

“Very,” he says. “Amazing, Maria.” 

“Good, good,” she says.”Óscar is in back, say hello to him before you leave.”

Thor nods, pushing back from the table and standing. “I was wondering where he was.” He turns to you. “You’ll be okay with Maria?” 

You nod, smiling at him, and watch him leave, disappearing back behind the counter into the back of the restaurant. Watching him walk away from you is a foreign experience, and you find yourself swallowing down a distant pang of discomfort as he rounds the corner. 

Maria starts to clear the table and you push yourself to your feet, wiping your hands on a napkin and then on your thighs. “Let me help,” you say. She protests for a moment before allowing you to take a handful of plates. 

You follow her to the back, precariously balancing the plates in your arms without any of the grace Maria seems to inherently possess. She holds the door to the back open for you and beckons you in, leading you down a narrow hallway floored in rubber matting to a back room that’s lined with stainless steel tubs and water hoses suspended from the low ceiling. 

You follow her to one of the tubs, watching her place the dishes in plastic racks inside, and following suit. She hands you a hose and turns some knobs on the back of the tub, and you jump and then laugh with her at the hot jet of water that shoots from the hose. Splashing up on your shirt before you can point it back in the tub at the dirty dishes. 

You follow her lead and set to cleaning, wondering quietly to yourself where Thor is. The restaurant isn’t all that big and you can’t hear him anywhere. 

Beside you, Maria works with a practiced efficiency you find yourself stopping and watching without meaning to. 

When she catches you staring, she laughs and nods to the tub. “Get to work,” she teases. 

The water is scalding but you dunk your hands in anyway, pointing the nozzle at a stubborn stain. A thought crosses your mind, so you ask her. 

“How long have you known Thor?”

She smiles at that, a helpless, fond thing,  and shrugs her narrow shoulders. “Nine years perhaps? Ten? I’ve known him since he was a boy.” 

By boy, you know she means his mid-twenties, and you can’t stop your responding smile. Imagining Thor on the back end of a growth spurt, not yet filled out in his body. Trying to imagine him as anything other than the entirely assured, rock of a man he is today. 

You realize a dumb smile has stretched across your face. “What was he like, back then?” you ask. “When you first met him?”

Maria laughs. “Stupid,” she says, “The biggest eater I’d ever seen, and he always tipped too much.” 

You take your bottom lip between your teeth to try to fight the grin that’s making your cheeks burn a little. Reveling in this little glimpse of his past. “He still does that,” you say, and she nods, like she’s not surprised. 

A comfortable silence descends and her gaze shifts over to you.

“It’s nice to see him with some company.” 

You huff a little laugh at that, surprised. Moving from one plate to the next in your rack with the hose. “He doesn’t always bring girls around?” 

She makes a quiet little laugh at that and shakes her head. She pauses for a moment so long that you think that’s the end of it, focusing on the dishes in your tub, but she speaks again. On a chuckle so soft you can barely hear it over the spray of the water. 

“He never brings girls around.” 

 

 

Thor appears in the doorway a few minutes later, your nose catching the scent of him in the room before your eyes can even get a glimpse of him. He takes up most of the doorway, his hoodie-covered shoulders hunching in to fit in the space, and his face warms on a grin when your eyes meet his. 

“She put you to work, huh?” he asks on a quiet laugh, crossing his arms across his chest. 

You shoot a grin at him as you reach out to turn off the water, your dishes sparkling clean, and wipe your hands on your thighs. “Maria just had to tell me all the juicy gossip she knows about you, that’s all.” 

His eyebrows jump, delighted. “That so?” 

“Indeed,” Maria says somewhere behind you and you can hear the good humor in her voice. “She knows everything.”

Thor snorts quietly, ducking his chin on a grin. “As much as I hate to interrupt that, we have to hit the road. We have some ground to make up.”

Maria groans unhappily and appears from behind you, walking up to Thor and linking her arm with his. Leading him out of the room while you follow. She leads him to the front door, arm in arm. Speaking in rapid spanish you don’t even try to follow. 

She turns to face him when they reach the door, placing a hand on each of his arms, craning back to look up at his face. The naked emotion on her face, reflected in his, makes you turn away. Makes you look out the window and scuff your toe quietly on the linoleum. Wishing them privacy for what appears to be an intimate moment. 

It’s a few moments before Thor is touching gently between your shoulder blades, turning you back to face them. Maria’s eyes are shiny. 

“Thank you for the food, Maria,” you say, taking her hands in yours and squeezing. “Best I’ve ever had. I hope to come back someday.” 

She nods and squeezes your hands back, her mouth turned down at the edges as she pushes emotion back from her face. “He’ll bring you back here, or he’ll answer to me,” she says, raising her eyebrows at Thor. 

More goodbyes are said, Maria pressing a kiss to Thor’s cheek, before she is pushing you both out the front door with both hands and wishing you well. Thor says something in spanish to her that she returns, and then the door reluctantly closes, and you shiver against the cool wind. 

Thor opens his arm and you slide under it, nuzzling against the warmth of his chest, and he begins to walk you to the truck. 

The temperature has dropped since you entered the restaurant an hour earlier, the sun creeping behind heavy cloud cover as the wind swirls past you and makes you wrap a tight arm around Thor’s waist. He walks in long strides to the truck, tugging you closer to keep you warm. 

The crisp nip of the cold on your cheeks and nose reminds you of the day you met him. The warmth of his scent on the bitter cold wind is the same. 

When he opens the passenger door and goes to boost you up, you turn in his arms, standing on the running boards, a little above him. Making his eyebrows jump up in a little surprise, his hand coming down to steady your hip without a thought as you lean into his space.

You smile at him, feeling something in your chest ache sweetly, and you place your hands on his cheeks. 

He smiles back, softly, his eyebrows twisted in a little confusion, and then you lean down and press your lips to his. 

The kiss is tender soft, and he exhales against you. His arm curling loosely around your waist to tug you into his chest as your lips open over his in a soft exchange of breath. 

You pull back and hold him there, your palms soft on his cheeks, and feel something stir deep in your chest. You realize, as you blink back against the bitter wind, that it’s the urge to cry, and you clear your throat quickly. Leaning down to press another kiss to his lips when his face creases with a soft twist of concern. 

You want to say something stupid to him when you pull back again, and you only just manage to bite it back. Your heart is thumping as you look down into his blue eyes, the bond thrumming warmly between you, and you bite your tongue to the point of pain to stop yourself from telling him that you love him. 

“You’re alright?” Thor asks quietly, barely audible under the whistling wind beyond the open truck door. Reaching up to touch softly at your chin. 

He’s worried about you, even as you’re standing here, looking down at his face, in his arms. Grappling with the sensation of your first experience with an earth-moving love as he cares for you even then. 

Something unexpected puffs up in your chest almost painfully, a profound, ballooning sensation that manifests in a burst of sudden, giddy laughter that ripples out of your chest and barks out of your mouth before you can stop it. 

Thor tightens his grip on your waist, surprised, but you can’t stop it as it spreads from your chest down your limbs, and you feel yourself collapsing into him in a fit of warm laughter. Wrapping your arms tightly around his neck as you press your face against his throat and the scratch of his beard there. 

It’s absurd, you think, as you let him take your full weight as your body wracks with laughter. Wanting nothing more than to push him back onto the snowy ground and cover his body with yours but knowing you don’t have the time. 

When you pull back, you can feel a flush in your cheeks that’s mirrored in his, a little pink disappearing behind his beard. He’s smiling at you curiously, like he can feel the radiant happiness thrumming along the bond but he doesn’t understand the source of it. 

“You’re happy,” he clarifies, nudging his nose to yours affectionately. 

“Very,” you nod. “I’m sorry, that was - I don’t know what that was. I’m just happy.” 

He smiles then, pressing another kiss to your lips. “Never apologize for that, pup.” He pats you on the rump when a gust of chilled air blows between you. “Time to get your happy self on the road. We’ve got ground to cover.”

You groan playfully and tug him back to you by the ears for one last kiss when he goes to step back and he laughs against your mouth before pushing you up into the cab with one big hand, shutting the door behind you. 

A moment later, he climbs into the driver’s seat and shuts the door quickly behind him. Looking over at you as he tucks his wind-whipped hair behind his ears, still smiling, reaching blindly towards the console to crank up the heat for you. 

Your cheeks ache from it, biting down another bright smile at him, shivering under the stale, warm air pumping from the vents. Feeling floaty and a little strange as your mind slowly turns over that newfound realization. 

You love Thor. 

The feeling stirs and flutters in your belly like a living thing and you wonder if he can feel it along the bond. You wonder if he feels it too. 

Thor steers the truck out of the parking lot and back onto the highway with focused care. When he clicks on the cruise control, he looks over at you with a smile, looking like he’s warm on the inside, and he lifts his arm for you. 

You slide across the bench seat and curl up against his side. Tucking neatly under his arm and nuzzling your nose along the cool material of his hoodie stretched over his chest. 

His arm comes down around you, fitting you to him, and you feel the nudge of his nose along your hairline. Drawing in a deep breath at the taste of warm pheromones perfuming the air in the cab and settling closer against him. 

The giddiness from before is ebbing out of you like waves on a beach shore. Replaced slowly with the warmth of his body and the secure comfort of his arm around you. With the surety of him. 

You draw your eyes away from the dark scratch of his beard on his throat and under his jaw to look out the front window, where mountains are touching the sky in the distance. You let out a contented breath. 

“We’re headed to the mountains?” you ask. 

You feel him nod in response above you. 

“We have another night on the road,” he says. “Just past the mountains probably - there’s a place I like to pull off, if the timing works out. A nice place to spend the night.” He adds, looking down at you so his chin bumps the top of your head, “You’ll love it.” 

You nod, your hand finding his where it’s resting on your knee, letting your thumb trace along the bumps of his knuckles. “And then what?” 

Thor makes a contemplative sound. “I’m scheduled to drop off my trailer tomorrow. After that I’ll have a week off before I’m assigned another drive.” 

You nod, your mind turning over itself slowly. Rubbing your fingers absently back and forth over the back of his hand. 

Thor shifts in his seat, re-gripping his palm around the bottom of the steering wheel. Thinking, loudly. 

“You’ll have to make some decisions” he says, after a long beat of silence. “On how you want to spend the next few days.” 

You go quiet, thinking on it for a moment. 

“As long as you’re there, I don’t care.” Any place on earth with Thor would be better than your last heats spent alone.

He huffs a soft laugh, turning his hand on his knee upwards. Encouraging you to slide your palm over his, which you do. “I’ll be there,” he assures. “You just have to decide where ‘there’ is.”

You hum, satisfied, and lace your fingers with his. Your lips quirking when he squeezes your hand with his. “What are my options?” 

“Well,” Thor says above you, tilting his head to the side like he’s considering it. “I first thought the timing wouldn’t work out and we’d have to do it in the truck, here.” 

Your heart kickstarts a little at that. Surprised, somehow, even though enduring your heat in the back of his truck was always the most probable option. Your mind turns on the sudden image of it - the windshield steamed up from the inside as he lays you on your belly on the bed, surrounded by soft bedding, and roots his knot deep in you - and you feel your heat trickle sharply up your spine at the thought. 

Thor must smell it, the way your belly drops out with a little dip of arousal, because he moves on quickly. “But, I don’t think we’ll have to. And I’d rather not, if we can avoid it.”

You rub your thighs together and turn your nose against his chest. Pulling in an indulgent breath of his scent. “Why not?” You sound breathy. You don’t mean to sound breathy. 

You feel your mind start to slip and you clear your head with a little forcible shake. Training your eyes on the road instead of up at the underside of his jaw to stop your mind from wandering. 

You can hear him considering his words over your head for a moment. You hear his heart start to kick a little harder in his chest at whatever thought he’s mulling over. 

You squeeze his hand and wait for him to speak. 

He lets out a quiet breath. “It’s not safe. Not a safe as I’d like you to be, at least. I could lock the doors and find an isolated place to park, but…” 

His voice trails off and you find your gaze coming back to his face. He looks down at you and gives you an assuring smile, but there’s a little tightness of stress at the corners of it. Just a little pinch of worry you want to soothe away. 

“Another alpha could smell you a mile away,” he says, voice going a little softer. “A motivated one could tear the truck door off its hinges, not to mention all the glass.” He rubs a hand over his whiskered chin and then grips the wheel again. “I...would be agitated. Knowing I couldn’t protect you..” 

You nod quietly, squeezing his hand again. “You don’t know what you’d do,” you say, understanding, but he makes a soft noise of disagreement above you. 

You lean away from him a little to look up at him, your brow twisting a little. 

He meets your eyes for a fleeting moment before looking again out the windshield. “I know what I’d do, pup.” His voice is soft, but sure. “I’d kill anyone who got near you.” 

It’s nothing you didn’t already know, somewhere deep inside you, but it still sends a tremor down your spine to hear him say it aloud. To feel the change in the air as he confesses the depths of his possession over you. You’re dimly aware in some part of your mind that another person in your position would be afraid, but all that you know is that you’re not. Not at all. 

You smell a thin tendril of stress in the air and curl your fingers around his ear, tilting his head down and leaning up to press a quick kiss to his cheek before letting him turn back to the road. You place your palm over his heart and feel the beat of it there. 

“Okay,” you say gently, nodding. “The truck is out. Timing is going to work out, right?” 

He nods back. “I think so. If you can make it through tomorrow.” 

You take a moment to catalog how you feel and find your heat nearly receded back into your subconscious, quieting after the little flare a moment before. You have time, you think. 

“I will,” you say, firmly. 

Static starts to trickle in on the radio and you reach to fiddle with the dial. You turn down the heat while you’re up, warmed to the core from being tucked against Thor’s side, before settling back against the bench and under his arm with a contented little sigh. 

“No truck, then,” you say with a smile up at him when you lean back to the seat, patting a soft palm against his belly. “Easy. What else can we do?” 

Your tone is playful and light, wanting to ease the worry in the line of his shoulders, but the question is borne of sincere ignorance, having spent every single heat you’ve experienced since it first bloomed in your late teens locked away in shelters behind barricaded doors. The thought of experiencing a heat in any way than that is enough to make your mind spin a little. 

Thor’s arm over your shoulder curls you a little tighter and his hanging hand finds your side and strokes there gently, absentmindedly as he thinks. “We can always rent a room.” 

That draws a little laugh from you. The image of Thor walking up to the front desk of a seedy motel and asking for one of their heat-proof rooms, sliding a wad of cash across the counter as you pant and sweat in his arms and whine for him. The clerk raising their eyebrows at the implication but taking Thor’s money and handing him a room key. 

“Always an option,” you agree, a goofy smile still stretched on your cheeks at the thought. “I could be your lady of the night.” 

He snorts in good humor. “Of several nights, maybe. How long do yours last?”

You feel the silly impulse to raise his hand in yours and gnaw on gently his knuckles, so you do as you try to think back to your last one, six months ago. Teething softly at his hand, speaking around his skin. 

“Hmm. Three days, give or take? Two, if I’m lucky, four if I’m not.” 

He nods. “Okay, three days. That’s not so bad.”

“Easy for you to say,” you mutter and he laughs softly. 

“Hey,” he shoots back easily, grinning, his tongue in his cheek. “It’s going to be hard work taking care of you.” 

You give his hand one last nibble before bringing it back to your lap, your hand still clasped in his. You snuggle yourself closer to him still, nudging tighter under his arm. Your chest vibrating with warmth that has your cheeks aching from smiling. 

“You better be ready,” you warn. “I’m planning on being particularly needy this time around.” 

He rumbles at that, a deep chuckle that drifts off at the end. 

A bird flies across the path of the truck, just missing it, and catches your eye. 

He stills for a lingering minute, like he’s thinking, and then he presses a kiss to your temple. Keeping his face there for a moment, his hand steady on the wheel. 

“I am gonna take care of you, you know?” he murmurs into your hair and something in your heart aches. 

You turn into him and meet his lips with yours. “I know,” you tell him. “I know you are.” 

He turns back to face the road reluctantly, squeezing you with his arm over your shoulder. 

You think the issue is settled, then. That he’ll take you to a motel and rent a room and ride out the storm with you there on a comforter that smells like dust and a heating unit that whines when it runs, and you chew on your lower lip, muffling a soft smile. 

Even then, you think, it’ll be the kindest you’ve ever had. The safest. A blessing. 

Thor, though, shifts in his seat again, and you know he has more to say. 

“There’s another option,” he says, slowly, when he realizes you’re watching him and waiting for him to speak. “I didn’t want to presume, but...you should know all of your options.” 

Your eyebrows lift. Curiosity piqued. You wait for him to speak, watching him choose his words with care. 

He glances over at you and then back out the windshield. 

“I have a place,” he says. 

For a beat your brows draw on confusion. Then your jaw drops and his expression crumples. 

“Pup - ” he warns, seeing the joy sweep across your face. “It’s not a nice place, it’s just -”

“You have a place?” you say, turning in your seat to face him. “I thought this was your home?” 

His expression is something you can’t decipher. “It is,” he says. Hesitantly. “I spend most of my time on the road, I just have a little - “ 

But your mind is going now, on the thought of being able to weather your heat somewhere known to him. Somewhere safe and secure and smelling of Thor. Your heart is leaping in your chest, your mind stuttering over itself on this new information. 

“That’s incredible, Thor, I had no idea,” you say, touching his forearm. You’ve never known someone who has their own place. “Like an apartment, or…?”

He shakes his head, giving you another quick glance. “It’s just. It’s a little cabin -”

“A  _CABIN_  -” 

You’re practically shouting, too loud in the cab, excited, and a flush is rising up his throat. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, overcorrecting your voice to a whisper. “A cabin?” 

He shakes his head again, a smile twitching at his lips in spite of himself. “Pup, I’m - it’s tiny. I haven’t been there in months. I don’t even remember how I left it, it’s probably filthy.” 

You’re grinning so hard your cheeks ache. A cabin. Thor’s cabin. A cabin that belongs to Thor. That smells like Thor. That feels like Thor. 

“Pup,” he moans, like he can see your mind taking off on you. “It’s not - I didn’t even want to bring it up because it’s not...I don’t even know if the generator will work after this winter. It won’t be as comfortable as a rented room.”

Your hands are in your lap as your mind turns, optimism sparking anew in your belly as you imagine it. Picturing a place that Thor has curated. That he’s lived in and made his own. Like the truck, where you felt more at home than you’ve felt anywhere, but more. 

“Just,” Thor says, squeezing your knee and pulling you back to the moment. “Don’t decide now, okay? We’ve got another night on the road either way. Mull it over with the other options and then decide.” 

You nod, placing your hand over his. Sensing the soft little twinge of his anxiety on the air and wanting to soothe it away. “Okay,” you tell him. “I’ll think about it.” 

He gives you a look like he thinks you’re just placating him and honestly, you are. Your mind is made up, even if you know he’ll try to talk you out of it later in the night. 

When you look out the windshield, the mountains are closer still. You let your eyes travel up the edges of the jagged peaks that are just close enough to crisp up against the dreary backdrop of the sky. They’re a dark purple near the peaks, underneath blankets of crisp, white snow. The slopes covered in distant specks you assume must be trees. 

They’re breathtaking, and you find yourself staring. Squinting at them to try to make out different shapes and features on the shadowed slopes of them on the side nearest you. Wondering if faint moving dots you see are people or animals or something in between.

A easy silence settles around you both, listening to the hum of the highway beneath the tires. 

After a few minutes, Thor speaks again. 

“We’ll be to them in two hours, and through them in another two,” he says, nodding to the mountains. “We’ll take a road that cuts through them and be on the other side before the sun goes down. Perfect time to find a spot and bed down for the night. You’ll get to see the sun set on them.” 

Your heart starts to trip a little in your chest as you lean forward on the bench to look out the windshield at the mountains. Fast approaching, now. 

Thor cuts a quiet look over at you, like something just occurred to him. “I should ask - how are you with heights?”

 

 

“Not great” turns out to be the answer, after you spend the entire drive through the mountains pressed back against the bench, sweating under your arms at the sight of rocks tumbling over the edge of the roads and off a sheer drop. 

It’s safe, of course. Thor takes a multi-laned highway that weaves through the peaks that fits his truck with room to spare and he drives with care, easing the truck and trailer around sweeping turns. Checking his mirrors frequently and without thought, completely at ease with what feels to you like threading a needle with a 50,000 pound piece of thread. 

You end up out from underneath his arm, back on your side of the bench. Overheating from your apparent discomfort with heights, turning the air conditioning on and pointing all of the vents at yourself. 

You feel a little guilty, knowing Thor was looking forward to you enjoying the view. You’ve just never been above sea level and your body apparently has no idea what to do with it. 

Thor, for his part, is his usual patient self. Checking on you out of the corner of his eye like he thinks he’s being subtle as he takes over the conversation easily. Telling you about his childhood and teenage years, sharing stories about his brother and sister that make your eyes widen even as he laughs about it, finding apparent humor in the number of failed attempts his younger brother made to poison him. He asks about you, too, and you’re grateful for the distraction. 

You’re through the mountains in a little over two hours, and making the steep descent down back to the flat plains feels to you like stepping off a boat onto land after a long voyage at sea. 

Thor cracks the windows to let in fresh, cool air and you find yourself leaning over the passenger door window, facing into the rush of cold like a dog. Shivering as it cools you and settles your queasy belly. 

Thor keeps an eye on you and the road, asking if you need a break and going quiet when you insist that you don’t. 

“We’ll stop at a store soon,” he promises, when you finally roll the window back up. The worst of it passing. “I want to get food for dinner for us tonight, and you can get some fresh air.” 

“I’m good,” you assure him, your stomach finally starting to settle, and he gives you a skeptical look. You don’t know who gave him permission to be able to read you so well. 

“Either way,” he tells you, giving you a look like he sees right through you. “We’ll pull off here soon. Gonna feed you something other than gas station food tonight.” 

Your stomach turns, but this time on a pinch of hunger. Different from what you’re used to. Not the empty pang of a hollow stomach, but a curious thing. An eagerness to try something new. You smile softly to yourself, patting your belly. 

“You’re going to get me fat,” you tell him, and he laughs. 

“That’s the plan, pup,” he says with a smile. “That’s the plan.” 

 

 

True to Thor’s word, you watch the sun set on the backside of the mountains. Thor had pulled off on a dirt road with a sign so faded you couldn’t read it, carefully easing the truck back through a thicket of conifers until it opened up into an open clearing, right at the base of the mountains. 

A camping ground, from the looks of the snow-filled fire pit, and a sensibly abandoned one at this time of year. 

Thor had parked the truck along the far side of it, leaning over to press an excited kiss to your cheek before stepping down onto the yellowed grass to get set up for the evening. 

You’d sat in the cab on his insistence and watched as he scooped snow out of the fire pit and emerged after a few quiet moments from the treeline with an armful of firewood. Listening to oldies warble softly over the radio as your heart thudded and beat in your chest at the sight of him moving around the clearing eagerly. So content to be working with his hands, it seems. So happy to be preparing the area for a night with you.

He’d made dinner, wrapping a few handfuls of vegetables and some chicken thighs in aluminum foil and roasting it over hot coals, and he had beamed when you’d groaned at your first bite. Telling you with a grin that if you were impressed with this, he had some real cooking to do for you in the future.

Now, hours later, you’re wrapped in a blanket and curled up in his lap, your breath fogging up the air even with the roaring fire at your feet. He had a folding chair stashed somewhere in the truck storage and he fills all of it, spreading his thighs wide to balance you as you snuggle closer to him, nudging your nose along the line of his collarbone you can feel beneath the soft of his hoodie. 

The mountains are impossibly vast before you, seeming as if you’re standing at the base and looking up them even though you know you’re several miles away. The sun is just touching the horizon now, casting brilliant golden light against the jagged, snow-covered panes. 

Thor was right. It’s breathtaking. 

The air is crisp as the night approaches, pleasantly so in the glow of the fire, and smells of bonfire smoke and the first subtle aromas of a thaw in the near future. Fresh, cool earth and trees just starting to wake under the warm setting sun. 

You shift and lift your chin to him, making a quiet sound, and he smiles and presses a soft kiss to your lips. Your belly is full and Thor’s arms feel like a cradle.The bond is close between your chests, thrumming quietly and contentedly like glowing embers. 

The clearing is silent, save for the crackling of the fire and the healthy beat of your hearts, and your mind wanders to Thor’s cabin. You wonder if it’s this peaceful, wherever it is. 

Your hand sneaks out from under the blanket wrapped around your shoulders and finds Thor’s, lacing your fingers with his. 

“So,” you say, going for casual. “This place of yours.” 

He groans good naturedly, moving for a moment like he’s going to teasingly dump you from his lap before letting you settle back against him. “I knew you weren’t going to let that go.” 

“I’m just weighing my options,” you say, overly diplomatic, and you know he sees right through you. “Let’s do pros and cons.” 

He snorts a soft laugh at that but acquiesces. “Okay. Pros for the room - it’s guaranteed to have heat.” 

You bob your head. “Pros for your place - it’s your place.” 

“Pros for the room - it’ll be clean.” 

You laugh at that, your mind flashing to the few motel rooms you’ve stayed in your life. “I don’t know that that’s a guarantee. Pros for your place - we’ll be alone.”

Thor makes a sound. “Cons for my place - we’ll be alone.” 

You smack him on the arm gently and he shrugs, insisting. “It’d be awful conveineint if I wanted to murder you, that’s all I’m saying.” 

You laugh at that, unable to help yourself. 

You shoulder your way out of the blanket that’s around you, letting it pool around your waist as you move in his lap. He leans back in the chair and balances your weight on his thighs as you set your knees on either side of his hips, your rear resting on his knees, facing him. You want to see his face. 

He smiles up at you, his hands coming around your hips to hold you steady. “Hey pup,” he says softly, happily, and you can’t stop yourself from taking his jaw between your hands and bending down to kiss him. When you pull back, he’s watching you with an expression you can’t read. 

“Thor,” you tell him, and he nods. Listening. “If you don’t want to open that part of yourself to me, I understand.” He opens his mouth immediately and you press a finger to it. “If it’s too much, too soon, or it’s too private, the rented room will be perfect. It’ll be better than I’ve ever had.” 

You drop your hand from his lips and he speaks. “That’s not it,” he says. 

“Okay,” you say, kissing him again because you can. Running the pads of your thumbs across his cheeks, your palms still framing his face. “Then what is it?” 

He shakes his head, slowly. Looks past your shoulder at the mountains that are turning a steel blue as the sun dips below the horizon before his eyes come back to yours. 

“I want to be able to provide for you,” he admits, quietly. “You would be more comfortable in a suite. If you think I would take you to a crappy motel, by the way, you’re dreaming. There’s a nice highrise a few hours past where I’m dropping off the trailer tomorrow. It’s nice. You’d be safe. I don’t want you to worry about a thing.” 

The bond aches like a bruise, earnest and raw, and you find yourself shaking your head. “Thor,” you murmur, touching your forehead to his. “I am safe. I don’t worry about a thing. Not when I’m with you.” 

He looks up at you, his eyes shading with some layered emotion. Like he wants to believe you but isn’t sure. 

“I would choose a place that is yours over a sterile room one hundred times,” you tell him, holding his gaze. “I would choose a place that smells like you and feels like you every day. It’s not even close. I’m going to be out of my mind, soon. I can’t think of anything that would bring me more comfort than to be in a place that is safe and that is you.” 

He watches you for a long moment, his eyes searching your face, before he breathes out a sigh that sounds like agreement. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I am.” 

He snorts softly and shakes his head at you. “You’re really something, pup. Turning down a weekend in a nice suite with warm food and soft sheets to spend it with me in a shack in the woods.” 

You grin, your heart aching. “You know it,” you murmur, leaning in to nip softly at his lower lip. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

He watches you for a few moments, pushing a hair back from your face and tucking it behind your ear. Rubbing the back of his knuckles across the pink in your cheeks from the chill. 

“It’s right there, isn’t it?” he asks softly. Your heat. 

You breathe out, slowly, and nod. “I think so. Tomorrow, probably.” 

“Okay,” he says. Thumbing at your lower lip absently before dropping his hand. “I’ll get us started early tomorrow so we can drop off the trailer. We’re only a few hours out from the drop-off. Then I’ll get us home.” 

_Home._

You curl back into him, your heart warming on something intimate, shifting until your back is pressed to his chest, the back of your head resting on his shoulder as he rearranges the blanket over your lap.

You sit there together, bodies resting comfortably together under the warmth of the blanket, as the night slowly falls. You can hear your heartbeat and his, thudding in quiet sync with each other, and you wonder if the earth is in sync with you too. If somehow the moon and the tides are moving with you too, for that’s how natural it feels to be in Thor’s arms. 

The fire crackles, a log splintering and falling to ash, and he squeezes his arms around you. “I should get you to bed.” 

You breathe in and then out, finding his hand and taking it in yours. “Just a few more minutes,” you murmur. “I’ve never seen this many stars.”

Above, the sky is a blanket of them, blinking awake as the last vestiges of sunlight fade into inky darkness. Looking like a field of blinking fireflies as far as you can see. 

He agrees quietly, wrapping his arms around your waist and snugging you close to him.

You rise and fall with his chest, blinking up sleepily at the sparkling sky, and wonder for a moment how you’ve made it here. Wondering if at any moment you’ll wake up on a cold bench at a bus stop in Nebraska and find it was all a dream. 

Thor nudges your ear with his nose, pressing a kiss behind it, and you sigh. Bringing his hand that’s in yours to your lips and pressing a kiss to the back of his palm. 

“I’m going to want you to, you know,” you say, voice catching in your throat. Nearly a whisper. 

You feel his eyelashes against the shell of your ear as he blinks and breathes slowly. His silence telling you he knows what you mean. That he’s picturing it - him opening his teeth over the juncture of your neck and shoulder and biting down. Claiming you as his. 

“You don’t have to,” you tell him, looking up at the stars. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to. But I want you to know that I want you to.” 

He lets out a breath and the bond glows on something sudden and fierce. A swell of emotion deep in his chest that you feel echoing into yours. 

“Okay,” he tells you, after a long moment of silence. Nodding again and pressing another kiss to your ear. 

And with that, the quietest, warmest breath of affirmation that warms your entire body against his, you know that he will. 

 

 

The next morning breaks with early sunlight through the curtains of the cab, making you groan and burrow your face into the pillow. 

It’s Thor who woke you, you realize blearily, as you feel him rouse beside you. Turning in his place to lean over you, the soft end of his nose dragging gently along the line of your shoulder and neck, before he’s pushing to his feet. 

You blink your eyes open to see him getting dressed, his eyes on you. He seems in a hurry. 

You frown behind the comforter. “What’s wrong?” Your voice comes out scratchy and thick. 

His lips quirk in a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and he steps towards the bed and leans down to you. Holding up his jeans with one hand, he reaches out and feels at your forehead with the back of his hand. 

“You’re warm,” he tells you when he steps back and buttons his jeans. 

You shrug, wanting to assuage his worry, but when you push yourself up onto your elbows, you blink as your vision starts to swim. 

You hear movement down the hall and you force yourself to sit upright, squeezing your eyes shut as your stomach drops and sweat breaks out along your brow. You breathe through your nose, in then out, trying to ground yourself as you feel your blood thickening up, slowing in your veins. 

You blink your eyes open with some effort and see Thor slipping into the driver’s seat and starting up the truck with a rumble. A gentle rock of the truck beneath you and then you’re moving, tree branches gently scraping along the windows as Thor works it carefully back out the way you came in the night prior. 

Wakefulness comes to you slowly, and you find yourself fighting for it. Shaking your head to clear it as the first distant pin-pricks of your heat dissipate as you claw yourself to consciousness. Forcing yourself to your feet and steadying yourself along the wall and into the small bathroom. 

It takes you a few minutes more than usual to brush your hair and teeth, but by the time you squeeze your way back into the small hallway, you’re much more awake. Changing into a fresh pair of underwear next to the bed before pulling up your leggings and slipping into an oversized t-shirt of Thor’s. 

You make your way to the front of the cab, stopping behind Thor in the driver’s seat and letting your palm touch the back of his head. 

He looks up at you, a little startled. He’s got you up to speed on the highway now, the yellow and white lines blurring as they fly underneath the hood.. 

“You should sleep, pup,” he says. “It’s about two hours to drop off the trailer.” 

“I’m okay,” you tell him, your jaw cracking on a yawn. You slip down into the passenger seat, reaching forward to turn on the radio and fiddle with the dial. Curling your legs up underneath you on the seat when you find a good station and letting your head tip back against the seat. Blinking hard when your eyelids weigh, knowing that sleep will quicken the advance of your heat and needing to keep it at bay. For just a little longer. 

“Keep me awake, please,” you murmur, tilting your head to look over to Thor. He looks back at you, something tight and worried around the corners of his eyes and he smiles. Reaches over and squeezes your hand. 

“Okay,” he says, watching you. “Alright.” His hands twist on the steering wheel, creaking the leather. “Tell me about your dream house. Describe it for me.” 

That surprises you a little, making you lift your head from the headrest to look at him curiously. “Realistic or unrealistic?” 

He shrugs, still smiling at you. “House of your dreams. Lay it on me.” 

The air thickens on a soothing scent and you find yourself talking. Telling Thor about how your dream house is anything that’s yours. That’s your own. That you can paint and decorate and keep as clean or as messy as you like. A place with doors you can shut and windows you can open. 

Thor listens. Keeping his eyes on the road but looking over at you every now and then, whenever he hears your voice warm on a smile as you describe the more trivial things you’d love - wood floors and big picture windows and green nature around as far as the eye can see. 

He fills the silence when your voice tapers off, his voice rumbly and deep with lingering sleep as he tells you about the house he wants to build someday. Up in the mountains, where the trees are thick and the birds sing loud in the misty mornings. How he dreams of waking up with the sun and working outdoors until he’s called back for dinner. 

You wonder to yourself if your approaching heat has skewed your perception of time, because it feels like minutes instead of hours when Thor turns off the highway and up a long, paved drive and tells you that you’ve made it. 

Thor asks you to pull a binder from beneath your seat and you do, setting the heaping thing on your lap as he pulls up the drive and approaches a booth on the side of the drive with a traffic arm extended down and a man standing outside of it. Thor slows the truck as you approach, and he rolls down his window. 

You can’t hear what is said, but the conversation sounds familiar, like Thor knows the man, and then the traffic arm is lifting and Thor is driving ahead. 

He looks over at you and touches the backs of his knuckles to your forehead. 

“I’m good,” you tell him, nodding. 

He nods in return, giving you a once over before turning back to the road. “It’ll be quick,” he promises. 

An expansive compound comes into view, rows of semi trailers lined up outside a sprawling warehouse, and Thor drums his thumbs on the steering wheel as you approach. He’s tightened up inside with worry you can’t place, and it makes you want to take him into your arms. 

It takes a few moments for Thor to maneuver and park the truck where he needs it and you spend the time watching him. Letting your mind fog faintly around the edges as you take in the focus around the tight in the corners of his eyes, the tug of his lower lip in his teeth as he shifts the truck from drive, into reverse, and then into drive again with a skill that comes from years of measured practice. 

When the truck comes to a soft, lurching stop, Thor moves quickly. He kills the ignition and checks that the windows are up, trading you the truck keys for the binder in your lap. Leaning across the space of the cab and rubbing his bearded cheek gently against yours. A quick, light scenting before he’s pulling back and giving you a tight smile. 

“Just a few minutes,” he tells you, squeezing your knee. “Don’t unlock the truck for anyone but me.” 

You nod and tug playfully on his beard, telling him he’s worrying too much, but when he steps down from the driver’s seat and the driver door shuts and locks, you feel something cold thump distantly in your chest. It feels wrong to be apart from him. 

You watch him walk from the truck to meet a man with a clipboard, checking over his shoulder once at you before he shakes the man’s hand and flips open the binder in his arms. 

The cab is warm from the heat being run for the last few hours, and you find yourself pulling at the neck of your shirt. Starting to feet sweat prick under your arms and behind your knees in the still air. 

Your heat tickles at your spine, an announcement of a distant arrival, and you scrubs your palms over your cheeks. Pushing back at the feeling and rooting yourself in the now. Feeling your control over it slip fractionally with every moment Thor is away. 

Thor has turned so that he’s facing the truck as he talks, the other man’s head bent as he makes notations on his clipboard. Both of their mouths are moving, and you give Thor an appeasing wave when his eyes meet yours. His brows are drawn, you can see, his mouth twisting down on a soft, almost imperceptible frown. 

You don’t know why until you notice them. One, then two, and then four men, appearing slowly through the wide open garage doors along the front of the compound. All dressed in coveralls as they lean to look through the open doors at the truck. At you. 

One of them catches your eye, and the look that flashes across his face makes you flinch. Makes you drop your gaze to your lap as your stomach lurches on a nauseating memory. 

When you look up a moment later, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth, you look to Thor, and you heart thuds painfully against your ribs. A sudden burst of adrenaline lights in your belly when you see the rigid line of his shoulders and the hard set of his jaw. He’s watching them, his eyes scanning the open garage doors one by one. Clear in every line of his body that he’s ready if need be. Ready to fight. 

You take a shaky breath in and then slowly breathe it out, your hand coming up to feel at your heartbeat in your chest. Feeling something flutter deep at the sight of him, something possessive and fierce that makes you bite your tongue. 

He meets your eyes again and gives you a smile that you can read the tension in even at the distance, and you nod back. You’re okay, you want to tell him. There’s no need to worry. 

He seems to be wrapping up, dropping his eyes from yours to sign on the man’s offered clipboard, when his head snaps up, his eyes darting, and he’s taking off in a fast step before you can even blink. 

Your mind whirls as you try to take it all in - a man stepping out of one of the garages towards the truck. Fifty yards away, at least, maybe more, but Thor is moving at him fast, the man with the clipboard raising his hand towards Thor and shoving on his chest, looking frantically over his shoulder and shouting something you can’t hear at the other man. 

Everything stops for a halting moment, Thor’s firsts clenched at his sides, the man with the clipboard’s mouth racing, speaking rapidly to both Thor and the other man, desperation clear on his face. 

Your heart is deafening in your ears, a galloping thunder, and you can’t take your eyes from Thor. 

You see the clench in his jaw and the grip of his fist as he takes a halting step backwards, his eyes locked on the man who has also stopped. Letting the man with the clipboard push him back another step, and then the man with the clipboard is turning and pointing at the other man, shaking his fist at him and screaming an order - you can tell by the red in his face. 

The other man takes a moment, looking from the man with the clipboard, to Thor. Then to you, up in the cab. Thor takes a hard step forward, shoving back at the man with the clipboard, and then the other man gives. 

He seems to let out a breath and then he backs away, his hands up to Thor in a clear offer of surrender. Like his senses came back to him all at once. He backs a few steps, his eyes on Thor, before he turns and disappears back through the open garage door and into the warehouse. 

The other men watch for a moment and then follow, nothing left to see. 

The man with the clipboard drops his hand from Thor’s chest and is speaking to him quickly. Pointing to the truck and you, holding up his hands as if to say there was no harm done. 

Thor stares at the open garage doors for a long moment, his gaze hard, before you see his fists clench and then relax at his sides. He grips the binder in his palm and turns from the man with the clipboard and heads towards you. Coming back to the truck in slow, deliberate steps. Like he’s thinking about every single mechanical movement it takes to walk and forcing himself to keep coming towards you instead of turning back to the compound. 

The driver side door opens and the scent of his fury rushes in, heavy like the air before a storm, and he slams the door shut behind him, sitting heavily in the driver’s seat. 

A beat of silence falls, and then he grips the steering wheel. Letting out a slow, deliberate breath through his lips before he finally turns to look at you. 

Seeing your expression turns something in him, makes the tension clear like a puff of smoke, and he breathes out again. Consciously releasing the stress and strain locked up in his every muscle. 

He can hear your heart thundering, you realize. 

He breathes in and out once more, the air clearing, and he takes your hand gently. 

“I’m okay,” you tell him, “It’s alright.” And he nods like he knows. 

It takes a few moments for the trailer to be unhitched by some men outside and Thor keeps your hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the back of your palm as he keeps his gaze trained out through the front windshield. Calming slowly, getting back into himself even as he remains on alert. 

The man with the clipboard appears into view and gives Thor a thumbs up, prompting Thor to squeeze your hand before releasing it. You hand him the keys and he starts the truck with a twist of the ignition, not letting the truck cycle through two rumbles before he’s shifting it into drive and pulling out. 

You leave the way you came in, Thor driving faster without the trailer. There’s no stopping or pleasantries with the man at the entrance this time, Thor just lifting a hand in greeting as you drive past, and the truck grumbles as Thor accelerates down the long drive. 

You make it to the highway and he turns west, knowing, somehow, where he is and where he needs to go. 

You drive in silence for a few minutes, with you watching Thor as he visibly works at calming himself down. Taking steady breaths and gripping and regripping the steering wheel. Looking pointedly out the windshield instead of at you. 

Your heart aches and you reach out and touch his hand. 

“Thor,” you murmur. 

He looks to you. 

“Pull over,” you tell him. Voice quiet and sure.

He does, after giving you an uncertain glance. Pulling the truck over onto the wide gravel shoulder and then shifting it into park. 

You can hear his heart too, thudding hard in his chest, and you can’t stop the tender pulse you send along the bond. 

“Come here,” you tell Thor, but it’s you who goes. Sliding over the bench seat and climbing into his lap, fitting yourself between his chest and the steering wheel. 

Your weight is barely settled on either side of his thighs before he’s exhaling like he’s in pain and he clutches you to him. Gripping your body tight and lifting his head to rub his cheek against yours. To scrape his beard along your jaw and smear the wet of his lips against the soft skin there. 

You hold him and speak to him in a quiet voice. Your hand coming up to the back of his head and playing gently with his hair as he scents you desperately. Needing you as you kiss the swell of his cheek and let him, let him assure himself that you’re alright. That you’re his and that you’re safe. That he did well for you. 

It takes a few moments but you feel his heart rate begin to slow where his chest is pressed to yours. When he finally pulls back, your jaw and sternum are pink from the scratch of his beard and you can see the blue of his irises again. Brilliant in the early afternoon sun. 

You cup his cheek in your palm and the bond aches sweetly. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, drawing back. Turning his head to press a kiss to the palm of your hand. “I’m sorry about that.” 

That knocks a small huff of laughter from you. “Sorry for being my big strong alpha?” you ask, voice tipping light and teasing. 

He snorts a soft laugh back. 

“You keep me safe,” you tell him, meeting his eyes. “Never apologize for that.” 

He keeps you there in his lap, his arms circled around your waist for a few long moments. Looking at your face with an expression you can’t quite decode, but the tension in the cab has bled out to a perfume of heady calming pheromones you realize distantly have come from you. 

You press a soft kiss to his lips, and then one to his cheek. “Where to now?” you ask. 

Thor pats you softly on the rear before he nudges you reluctantly back to the passenger seat. He waits until you’re settled in to shift back into drive, pulling carefully back out onto the highway, and casting you a lingering glance that’s achingly fond. 

“North and west,” he tells you. “We’ll stop for food when we get close. Let you stretch your legs a little and stock up for the next few days.” 

You find a grin sneaking across your face. “You’re taking me to your place?” 

He snorts, giving you a puzzled look. “That’s what you asked for.” 

You shrug, looking out the windshield, your tongue pressed up against your teeth. “Still,” you laugh. “Thought you might trick me.” 

He reaches across the cab and pushes your shoulder, light and teasing, and you tip against the passenger door, cheeks flushing on a bout of stupid giggles. The tension from before all but evaporated.

“Honestly,” he sighs, pretending to be exasperated, but when you meet his eyes across the space, all you see in his expression is love. 

 

 

You spend the afternoon on the road, stopping at a gas station midway to fill up the truck and get a lunch of cellophane wrapped sandwiches and fruits just on this side of good. Sharing a large water bottle back and forth as you flip through a binder of delightfully aged CDs you found under the seat next to where you’d found his trucking binder. 

You select a worn James Taylor album to listen to as a joke but find yourself enjoying it in spite of yourself as the landscape passes in a blur. Snow covered fields and an ever present chain of distant mountains a gray fog in the distance as the miles pass. 

You find your skin starting to itch and Thor notices at once, even when you try to be sly about it. Sweat is starting to prickle along your brow, your heat flickering faintly low in your belly, and you can see Thor smell it in the air. 

He presses on the accelerator with a set to his jaw and the truck flies. 

 

 

You pass a lone grocery store sometime later, linear time just a concept to your brain that’s growing hazier by the minute, that Thor determines is adequately deserted for a supply run. 

You watch him sit in the driver’s seat and internally debate over whether to bring you in, his eyes glancing nervously over to the three old vehicles parked on the far side of the lot. Employees, surely, but Thor sits there for a moment and worries his lip in his teeth before he switches the ignition off and tells says, “Let’s go.” 

You’ve started to go a little foggy but the bite of the cool wind as you step out of the cab rouses you a little, and you let Thor tuck you into his side as he walks you to the front door and through the creaky automatic doors. 

It’s small inside, more of a convenience store than a grocery store, but Thor grabs a basket and moves with purpose. Keeping one hand low on your back and tugging you along when you find yourself drifting off and falling behind. 

You don’t even see what he grabs, simply focusing on staying in his orbit and taking his hand in yours to soothe the tense nerves you can sense in him. Smiling up at him when he finally pulls you to the checkout lane and deposits you slightly behind him as he pulls out his wallet from his back pocket to pay. 

The cashier is an old woman with a kind face, and you’re convinced that’s the only reason Thor makes it through the transaction with his typical politeness, giving her a quick smile as he scoops his hands through the plastic bag looks and steers you towards the door. 

The cool air outside feels good and you find yourself turning into it. Lifting up your chin so it rushes down the collar of your shirt until you shiver and Thor practically scoops you up and carries you to the truck. Opening up the passenger side door and and boosting you up, even as you squirm in his hands to keep feeling the breeze. 

Thor climbs into the driver seat soon after, fiddling with the vents and turning on the air conditioning. Casting you a worried look in the early evening sun when you groan and turn towards the cool air. 

“Soon, pup,” he tells you. Touching at your cheek before turning on the truck. “Just another hour or two.” 

You slump back against the passenger seat, a haze creeping in around the corners of your vision. Your bones weighing you down to the seat. 

“Until we’re home,” you murmur. 

Thor nods. “Yeah, pup. Until we’re home.” 

 

 

You wake at the feel of the truck braking, a gentle lurch that has you rocking back against the seat and nodding blearily awake. 

You groan softly, pushing yourself off the passenger door to a sitting position. Turned around. Confused and squinting against the soft light of the setting sun, your heart hammering sluggishly behind your ribs. 

A hand rests on your arm, gentling, and Thor’s voice is a quiet rumble in the cab. “It’s alright, pup.” In the glow of the retreating sun, Thor’s features are bathed in a golden glow. 

You’ve been asleep for some time, judging by the time glowing from the dash in hazy green lights. Your mouth feels like it’s full of cotton. 

Thor is slowing carefully, turning the wheel with one hand to guide the truck onto a narrow, snow covered road that disappears up into thick tree cover, his other hand still resting on your forearm. 

You blink and swallow heavily, your mind turning over slowly, like wading through molasses, and you whine, lowly. Pawing at his hand nervously, feeling sweat prickling under your arms. 

You’re on the cusp of your heat. Not yet arrived, but already starting to swim a little in the delirium of it. 

“It’s alright,” he murmurs, giving you a glance across the lit interior of the cab. “We’re here.” 

Your fingers grip his hand as you breathe in and out, taking deep pulls of Thor’s calming scent and feeling your spine tingle reflexively. It’s not fear you feel, but a deep thread of anticipation. Of the weight of the knowledge of what is to come. The feeling before tipping over the edge of a roller coaster ride. 

Thor guides the truck up the narrow drive, heavy, snow-boughed tree branches dipping low and dragging along the truck roof as you pass underneath. The sun is waning, just dipping below the horizon, casting soft light over the icy road and heavy drifts that line either side. 

The trees thin after a few long minutes of slow driving and a clearing comes into view. Thor takes his hand from your arm to steer with both hands as he carefully drives the truck along the tree line and eventually parks it, turning the key back in the ignition and letting the engine slowly putter out as quiet mountain air slowly takes its place. 

The clearing is glittering in the setting sunlight, golden rays catching on dust motes lazily floating through the air, and you find yourself staring, your eyes widening at what you see. 

A small cabin sits up against the trees on the far side of the clearing, made of roughened timber that looks hand-hewn. Like maybe Thor felled those trees himself, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of a hand slick with dirt and grime, before swinging an axe down hard. 

A porch wraps around the front of it, surrounded by a railing and shaded with mossy-shingled roof peeking through a heavy pack of snow, a single rocking chair tipping gently in the breeze near the front door. A large window adorns the front wall, surrounded by shutters painted a soft, fading green the color of juniper trees. Through the frosted glass, you can make out the faint outline of curtains, drawn back and gathered at the window’s sides to let the light in. 

The sight of it fills you with a warmth you can’t explain, a gentling, fluttering feeling behind your ribs, and you close your mouth consciously, realizing it had fallen open. 

You look to Thor, who is watching you. His expression is carefully blank. Measuredly neutral. You watch his brow notch down just a fraction, a blink of uncertainty, and then he’s leaning towards you. 

You don’t know why for a moment, stilling to let him do whatever he’s doing and turning your head to take in an indulgent pull of the scent of his neck as he leans over near you. 

Warmth envelopes you as Thor pulls back and curls the knit length of your scarf around your neck, once, then twice, tucking the tails snugly into the open throat of your winter jacket. You have a moment to wonder blearily where he found it before he pulls up the hood of your jacket then, rubbing his fingers affectionately over your ears as he does. 

“It’ll take a minute for the heat to kick on,” he explains, his eyes scanning your face. Trying to read you. “Hopefully it kicks on.” He reaches out and thumbs gently at your lower lip, then your chin. Just a soft breath of a touch. 

You nod into his hand, turning your nose against his palm and pressing a warm kiss there. Reveling in the strength and scent of him there. Grounding yourself in it. 

“Are you ready?” he asks, voice soft. Face an unreadable expression. 

You nod again, your belly flipping with curious nerves, and he nods back, turning from you to pop open the driver’s door and step down. You watch him walk around the front of the truck and he comes to your door. 

He cracks the passenger door and opens his arms for you. 

You step down into him, a practiced motion by now, and nuzzle under the collar of his hoodie against the warm skin of his throat as his arms band underneath your thighs and pushes the door shut behind you as he steps away with you in his arms. 

The wind is a mild, cool thing but you burrow into him anyway, wrapping your arms around his neck and rubbing your nose along the hard line of his throat. Wanting to be closer to his scent more than you want to get away from the cold. His skin is spiced and warm there, soft under the wet of your lips, and you feel him grunt softly and shift you in his grip when your lips close over the thrum of his pulse and start to gently suck. 

He crosses the clearing with long strides, always eager to get you out of the wind, and he pats you on the rump to warn you before he sets you down, your feet landing solidly on the wooden deck of the front porch. 

You stay close, swaying into the broad of his chest, and his arm comes up around you to secure you to him as he fishes through his keychain and looks over your head and gets the key in the lock and turns it. 

It takes his shoulder against the door to get it open, and then he’s ushering you inside and shutting the door behind you. Bathing you in a soft twilight darkness, the setting sunlight dim as it filters through frost covered window panes. 

He presses a kiss to your temple and then he’s moving past you, murmuring something about a generator and telling you to sit tight. 

He moves through the room quickly and disappears into a door on the far easterly wall, sure of his steps even in the low light, and you wrap your arms around yourself, a little chilled as you wait. 

After a moment, you hear the sputter and cough of an old engine, and then a gentle mechanical whirr stirs on the quiet air as a generator comes to life. He appears again and approaches, flipping a light switch on the wall near the front door, and the cabin interior lights. He looks relieved. 

He moves off again with some murmured words you don’t quite catch, touching your elbow gently as he does. 

He disappears through a door on the back wall, and when he doesn’t immediately return, you rub your hands together and allow yourself to look around. 

It’s cozy - one large, open room with rough barked timber making up the walls and ceiling. A bed is shoved in one corner, covered in heavy, worn quilts, unmade, looking lived-in and comforting even as your breath fogs up on the air. 

A table cuts across the center of the room, a sturdy creation made of dark wood and sanded silky smooth under the gentle touch of your fingertips. A toolbox is open on it, a few chisels and a hammer laying about, along with some wood carvings, laying on a soft bed of wood chips and shavings. 

You pick one up and smile, rubbing the pad of your thumb over the soft edges of the perked ears of a carved, wooden fawn, the size of a clementine in your palm. There are others too, you see, nestled among the shavings. A bird and another deer, as well as a fox. All carved with apparent care, features etched in soft pine wood. 

Thor reappears through the back door, kicking it shut behind him and moving to the wood burning stove centered along the back wall with a tall stack of split firewood in his arms, a dusting of snow gathered over the expanse of his shoulders. He sets about making a fire, kneeling before the stove and opening the front grate, placing logs into the furnace with care. Reaching underneath to retrieve sheets of newspaper stored there in a shallow box, crumpling it in his hands and stuffing the pieces between the logs. 

On the far left of the room is a tiny kitchen - a small, four-burner gas stove pressed in between a narrow ceramic sink and a refrigerator from the 1950’s, discolored into a creamy off-white from age along the curved front door of it. 

On hooks above the sink is a rifle, old looking but polished. You wonder when it was last taken down from those pegs. If Thor ever carried it as he moved through the woods, resting the barrel on the crook of his elbow as he looked up at the snow-heavy boughs overhead. 

Everything is covered in a fine layer of dust, reflecting the last few beams of light as the sun dips below the horizon. You wonder when he’d been here last. How long he’d stayed here, when he had. 

Thor strikes a long stemmed match on a worn matchbox, and you can smell the burst of sulfur on the air as he lights the kindling, dropping the match into the hearth when the flame takes on the paper and grows. 

The smell of burning paper is comforting somehow and you blink as you look into the flame as it creeps up the side of the stacked wood inside, splaying your hand out on the table’s edge to steady yourself at the quiet pull of exhaustion that settles into your bones at the sight. 

It’s not a minute before the entire belly of the stove is bursting with flame, the dry wood crackling as it catches and burns, and you can already feel heat coming off of the stove in waves. The room will heat quickly, you realize, and your eye goes to the broad line of Thor’s shoulders where he kneels before the stove, reaching in carefully to adjust the logs with his bare hands, his brow slightly drawn in his focus. 

The sight of it makes your heart ache like a fresh bruise, your hand coming up to touch at your throat and the heavy beat of your pulse there.

As the fire heats, the husky smell of campfire comes along with it, just a faint hint of it as most of the smoke goes through a chimney and out through the roof, and you find yourself licking your lips. Chasing the taste of it as it teases up gently against the scent of Thor that was so subtle in this place that you hadn’t noticed it at first, but that is beginning to bloom in gentle spice on the warming air. 

You unwind your scarf from your neck and drape it over the table, shouldering out of your jacket too, shivering at the feeling of warm air rushing over your newly exposed skin. 

It hits you, as you watch him stoke and tend to the flames, that it’s all for you. That he brought you here to be safe and to be secure in your heat. To have you in a place where he could provide for you in your time of greatest need, the time when you’ve always been left to fend for yourself and fight to come out in one piece. That he’s focusing on getting this fire going so that you’ll be warm. That he’ll work over the stove, towering in the tiny kitchen, to ensure that you’re fed and cared for. 

A tiny sound escapes your throat, a quiet little whimper barely audible over the crackle of the fire, but Thor’s head turns to you like you’d screamed. 

He’s on his feet in a moment, crossing the room to you and touching gently at your elbow. He looks to your scarf on the table and then back at you, reaching out to thumb gently at the skin of your throat. 

“Are you…” he trails off, eyes searching yours. “Are you warm enough, pup?” 

You nod, stupid emotion getting all tangled up in your throat and stealing your voice. 

He steps closer, leaning lower to look at you after his eyes take a quick survey of the room. Smiling, with a tightness around the corners of his eyes that you want to soothe away. 

He touches your elbows and looks down at you, his expression unreadable. “It beats the shelter, if nothing else,” he says. Shrugging in a way that reads so forcibly casual it makes your chest twinge.

“Thor,” you murmur. Stepping into his space and nudging your nose against his chest, your face warming on achingly fond smile as you nuzzle against his hoodie and breathe him in. 

You can feel his heart beneath your temple, a steady drumbeat of life and strength and it makes you want to crawl inside of him. Where he’s all warm and beating for you. 

It makes you smile. 

You take his hand in yours and place it over your chest. Over your corresponding thud-thump of your own heart. You look up at him, taking in the dark scratch of his beard, the startling blue of his eyes as they look down at you. A little quizzical. 

“What do you feel?” you ask, chewing on your bottom lip that’s twisted up in a smile. His hand spans nearly the breadth of your chest. 

He looks down at you, blinking. Still somehow bracing for rejection like he thinks you’re trying to trick him. Like he thinks what he’s done for you is somehow not enough. That he’s not enough. 

The thought alone is enough to make you laugh at the absurdity of it, so you do. A quiet little bubble of laughter that only grows his confusion. 

His fingertips stroke almost imperceptibly against your chest. A soft little reflexive movement of his hand. 

“I feel your heartbeat,” he says, slowly. 

Your fingers curl around his palm where you’ve pressed it to you. Still a little chilled from outside and reveling in the warmth of his palm. 

“And,” you prompt, looking up at him through your lashes. “Is it beating fast or slow?” 

He breathes in, then out. “Normal,” he says, at last. After feeling it for a moment. “Not fast or slow.” 

You bump your nose affectionately against his chest. Realizing you’re going to have to walk him through it. “Do you know why that is?”

He shakes his head, his mouth a soft little downturned line. 

“Thor,” you murmur, reaching up with a hand to curl around the line of his jaw. The smile on your face is stupid, you can feel it. “It’s because I feel safe here with you.” 

His brows lift, slowly. His expression lightens a shade, like the sun coming out from behind cloud cover. 

“It’s...” he says, his voice trailing, turning his hand to curl over your hand still resting on the back of his palm.

 You nudge your chin up at him, a silent request, and he obliges. Leaning down to press a gentle kiss to your lips. When he pulls back, he looks less unsure. 

You shake your head at him, another little wave of laughter thickening up in your lungs. “You don’t even know, do you?” you ask. 

He shakes his head right back, a little, confused smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Still unclear what you’re getting at but back to trusting you. Less guarded than before. “Know what?” he asks. 

You lean against your hand on his chest, making him take your full weight there. He takes a step back, indulgently letting you move him when you could never on your own. You raise your brows up at him and keep pushing him. 

Back, back, back through the little room, until the backs of his knees nudge up against the bed in the corner. 

He lets you push him one last time, letting himself fall back down onto the bed. Opening his arms reflexively when you crawl into his lap and push his upper body down back onto the mattress. 

He looks up at you, happiness taking over the confusion in his expression. “What are you doing?” he asks. You see a flash of his tongue behind his teeth. 

You make a contented little mouth sound, hovering over his laid out body on all fours, and he mirrors that sound when you lean down to press a firm kiss to his lips. 

“I’m telling you,” you say when you draw back. Voice soft between them. “You need to know, Thor.” 

His hands find your knees on either side of his hips against the mattress and he curls his palms loosely around the sides of them. 

“Tell me what, pup?” He’s back to indulging you, the stormcloud chased from his features. Smiling up at you with that familiar fondness that makes your chest ache. 

His hands drift up your thighs, settling around your hips and bringing you down until you’re sat flush against his lower belly. You kiss him again. A sweet, soft slide of lips. 

“Thor,” you tell him, seriously, but smiling. “I’ve experienced heats since I was fourteen years old. I’ve had a decade of them, give or take. A decade of heats every few months.”

He nods reaching up to push some of your hair back behind your ear. Waiting for you to continue. 

You lean down and nudge your nose against his and kiss him again. A fleeting little press. “I have experienced the days leading up to a heat dozens of times. I know the feeling well.” 

His hands flex softly around your hips when your teeth close gently on his lower lip in a soft nip. He exhales against your mouth. 

“I have always spent those days filled with dread. With fear for what is to come. For the misery I know awaits me.” 

You take his hand from your hip and place it again over your heart, pressing it down against your breast. 

“Not fast, not slow,” you tell him, pressing his palm to your heartbeat. “Safe. Secure. Because of you.” 

The expression that settles on his face takes a moment for you to decipher but it settles into a warm, perplexed, smile. 

“Yeah?” he says at last, brushing a thumb along the line of your cheek. Looking like he might just burst. 

You turn into his hand and press a kiss to it. “Yeah, Thor.” you murmur, your cheeks starting to hurt. Achingly fond for him. “Yeah.” 

“Pup…” his voice trails off as his eyes search your face for a long, lingering moment. 

He tugs you down and you go, letting him arrange you alongside him on the bed. Turning on his side to lean over you. Curling his hand around the hinge of your jaw and opening his mouth over yours. 

You sigh into his space, melting against the warm length of his body against yours. Feeling utterly at home in a house you’ve never been before, soothed by the familiarity of his strength and scent and presence. 

You trade soft, open mouthed kisses back and forth, pressing against each other on the soft, rumpled quilt beneath you as you breathe into each other’s mouths and taste at each other. Nipping and sucking softly at each other’s lips, sliding tongues delicately together. 

A log in the stove shifts and crumbles, sending a plume of heat out of the front grate, hissing on a quiet sizzle as embers fall to the bottom of the hearth. 

Thor settles, moving his weight over you, and it sparks something in the far corner of your mind. Slowly at first, like an ember catching on kindling, and then all at once. A rush of instinct flying to the surface of your consciousness, and you groan quietly against his mouth. 

“Careful,” you breathe, even as you lick into his mouth. 

He exhales hard and nods, pulling back a little. Taking your chin between his fingertips and giving you a light, chaste kiss before pulling back to look down at you. 

His pupils are dark. 

“You’re close,” he murmurs, petting again at your cheek. Feeling the flush racing beneath the skin there. 

You nod, nipping at the meat of his hand. Realizing you shouldn’t when it makes his pupils expand. “Might make it through the night,” you agree. Breathless beneath him. “You better enjoy my company while I’m still verbal because it’s going to go downhill fast.” 

His eyes are dark, even as he twitches his eyebrows up in a tease. “I think I’ll manage to find a silver lining,” he murmurs, bending low to kiss you once more. 

You can feel him against your thigh. The hot, solid press of his cock, half-hard,just from kissing and smelling at your hairline. 

It makes a thrill stir in your spine, a little electrical jolt. Knowing that you’re so close to when you’ll need him. When you can take him. 

You can tell from the look on his face that he’s already moved on. That he’s about to roll off of you to his feet, to help the cloud of heat recede from your consciousness. 

You stop him before he can, pushing on his shoulder to turn him to his back. He goes, and when you swing a thigh over his hips, his eyebrow lifts. 

You hold yourself over him, on all fours. Feeling the warm slide of his palm against your thigh, steadying you. Giving you a smile that is soft and unassuming, in spite of the evidence of his want between you. Resigned to waiting another day to have you and not minding it. 

Looking down at the gentleness of his expression makes your heart ache in your chest. You take in the subtle flush in his cheeks, disappearing beneath the dark, thick of his beard, and you reach to curl a hand around his jaw. Stroking your thumb over the warm skin under his eyes and letting your eyes rove over his face. Catching on the dark fan of his lashes and the faint creases around the corner of his eyes. 

He is blinking slowly at you, his mouth still twisted in a soft smile as he lays back and lets you look at him. Looking contented beyond measure to have you here, in his bed. On the cusp of your heat. In his arms and under his care.

He is...more than you could have ever asked for. More than you could have ever expected and certainly more than you deserve. 

You tilt his chin up to you with your hand on his jaw and lean down to press a kiss to his lips. Pulling back after a moment because you want to see him when you do what you’re going to do next. 

You reach behind you let the tips of your fingers drift lightly over his cock, your fingernails scratching at the denim over it. 

He lurches underneath you, his body jolting on a quiet, hot exhale. You see his pupils blow, expanding visibly in the low light. 

His hand on your thigh grips. 

“Pup,” he warns lowly, his voice breaking off on your name as your palm closes over the shape of it in his jeans. Cupping over it gently and feeling the heat of it as it hardens under your hand. “What are you doing?” 

You rub him gently, caressing him over his jeans, and you bite your lip at the sight of his jaw settling hard as he breathes out through his nose. His hips rising unconsciously to meet your hand. Just a soft, desperate little nudge.

His eyes find your face. Confusion has tightened the corners of his eyes as he looks up at you, even as his pupils expand with desire. 

“You can’t take me yet, pup,” he says, breathing out slowly, controlled, as you continue to run the edges of your fingers along the hard length of his cock. Feeling it twitch under your hand as your fingers trace the tip. “I - if I feel you, I’m - ,” he whispers a groan when your hand tightens on a gentle squeeze. “If I feel you, I‘m going to - need - to knot you, pup. You can’t -  _fuck, pup_  - you can’t take me yet.” 

You know that he’s right. With the way you smell, all ripe and heady and virile, you know his instinct will be to pin you and knot you deep, even if you haven’t tipped over the edge into your heat just yet. 

You can’t take his knot out of heat. You just know, from the blurred sight of it you’d seen when he’d taken himself in hand and spent on your belly two nights ago. He knows and you know that it’ll take the chemical reaction of your heat to enable you to take his knot without pain. 

You nudge your nose against his, and his mouth opens against yours when you kiss him. He licks into your mouth, hard, nipping your lower lip with his teeth on a shuddering breath. 

“ _Pup_ ,” he warns again, when his head falls back to the pillow. His eyebrows are drawn on his brow as his hips start to rock up against your hand. 

You open your mouth over his again and press your tongue into his mouth that he meets in equal favor. Sloppy and open mouthed and scorchingly hot as you taste into each other. Driven by a low, burning want that sizzles somewhere low in both of you. 

“You don’t have to feel me,” you tell him when you pull back. Shaking your head and breathing against his jaw. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to.” 

The expression swirls on his face when you nudge your nose to his once more and then begin to slowly inch down his body. 

“ _Pup_  - ” 

His voice breaks on a groan when you nuzzle the edge of your nose against the hard line of his cock.  You open the heat of your mouth over it, the wet of your lips catching on the ridge of it over denim, and you breathe in deeply. Feeling a hard shudder ripple down your spine at the palpably heavy scent of him here, your mouth flushing with spit at the thought of him against your lips. 

“I’ve wondered,” you murmur on what comes out a soft whimper. “I’ve wondered how you taste.” 

Thor’s head thumps hard back against the pillow on a gutted sound, the tendons in his neck flexing in a grit of tension and then he’s breathing out through his parted lips and letting his hips roll against your face. Letting himself feel what you’re offering him. Giving himself to the pull of it as his hands fist up tight in the loose bedding beneath him. 

It takes a few breathless moments for you to work his buckle with trembling fingers, the button and then the zipper, and you half expect Thor to push you away. To tell you that you don’t need to, to refuse what you so badly want to give him. 

But at the first tug of your hand on his waistband, he lifts his hips from the bed on a hot breath, staring down at you with blackened eyes as he worries his lower lip between his teeth. Caught, it seems, between roaring, warring sensations of desire and propriety. Of the drive to care for you and the want to let you care for him. 

His underwear comes next, a hard pull and then it’s off, and you moan, wantonly, at the wave of heady scent that surrounds you like a cloud and you’re leaning down, down, until you’ve got your face pressed up against his lower belly. Breathing in open mouthed as the fever-hot head of his cock smears wetly against the underside of your jaw. 

You feel for him blindly, your eyes closed as you open your lips catch on the heated skin of his belly, sucking in a breath when your fingers bump against him and then you close your fist around the hot, hard heat of his cock. 

His chest rises on a gusting breath as your fingers grip around him, unable to touch around the thick of it in your palm. 

You pull back then to look, feeling heat spike through your belly at the sight. A soft moan falls from your lips and you test the feel of it with an inexperienced pump of your hand. 

“Thor,” you murmur, voice thick with wonder. “You’re…” 

Thor is watching you with embered eyes, his nostrils flaring as his chest rises and falls. His cock twitches in your hand, a living, real thing, and your mouth flushes again at the sight of a fat drop of prespend slipping from the head. 

You adjust your position, crawling closer, and lean in instinctively to scent at him, nudging your nose along the length of his cock. Feeling the velvet-soft, overheated skin beneath your lips, your hands moving with him when his hips gently rut up off the mattress. 

Your eyes go to his, your lips fallen open on lost breath. Feeling almost lightheaded with your arousal. 

You’ve never done this before, though you have no desire to tell him that for fear that it will make him retreat out of some misplaced respect or chivalry. You try to corral your racing thoughts, to recall what you’d heard whispered late at night in crowded shelter rooms from other girls. 

You bend low and press the flat of your tongue against the underside of his cock in a firm, wet lick, and feel Thor shudder beneath you. 

The sound he makes when you press the head to the bow of your lips and take him in makes heat rip through your veins, makes you whine around him softly as you start to suckle at him instinctively, drawing him into the warm, wet plush of your mouth. Nursing him with soft pulses of your lips, feeling slick gather between your legs as the taste of him bursts across your tongue. Heady and heavy and spiced, just like his scent. 

Your hand is working him beneath your mouth, firm, pulsing grips that have soft sounds spilling from him, his hips lurching gently on every squeeze of your hand like he doesn’t even mean to. 

You don’t know what you’re doing, not at all, but he’s coming undone already, his eyes molten as they lock on the sight of his cock disappearing into the hot heat of your mouth. 

Your heat starts to flicker and burn along your nerve endings, slowing your mind and sharpening your senses as you drink down the bitter of his prespend eagerly, mouth gone sloppy with it and your saliva. Desperate, as your hips start to roll against the air, your thighs starting to tremble from the strength of it. Needing him as much as he needs you. 

You become distantly aware of the bond between you, thrumming and singing somewhere anchored behind your ribs, and a swell of possessiveness takes root in you at the vulnerability you feel pulsing from him. He’s bared to you, like this, you realize. Layed out and open to you, trusting you entirely as he gives himself to you in this way, a soft, aching beg for release pulsing down the length of the bond in time with the squeeze of your hand around his cock. 

It makes you want to snarl. Makes you want to open your mouth and take him all the way down. Makes you need to bring him release, to bring him to his pleasure. Makes something in your chest surge with the drive to provide for him. 

Something nudges against the bottom of your fist and you realize after a blistering, stupefying moment that it’s his knot. Starting to swell at the base of his cock, thrumming with arousal and pulsing blood, as his release draws nearer. A dull ache sparks between your legs then, hard pulse of need, of emptiness, coupled with the rush of knowing that he’ll give this to you, soon. When your body can take it. Take him. 

Your hand slips down, fingers widening around the base of it, and Thor curses hotly, his whole body jerking as his fists twist in the sheets. 

“Pup,” he warns, voice gone throaty and deep. “I won’t - ”

He’s close. You can feel it tightening up along the bond, the inching ebb and flow of his growing pleasure, building to something momentous. Something raw and aching and intimate that you need as much as breathing. 

You pull off of him, lips parted on softly labored breath. Twisting your wrist on an upstroke of your palm, watching mesmerized as another thick gob of prespend escapes past the foreskin. You lean down to lick it up, shivering at the sound and feel of his responding shudder beneath you. You wonder, as the sharp taste bursts across your palate and makes your core ache, how much he’ll come once he’s inside of you. 

Your hand around his knot squeezes gently and you feel the thunder of his pulse in it. His balls are pulled up tight, achingly heavy and full. Quivering under your gaze with the need to come. To fill you up til you can’t take any more. 

You give Thor a quick glance, taking in the flush of his cheeks and the mat of sweat in the hair around his temples, before you lean down again with purpose. Groaning quietly as you guide his cockhead past your lips and into your mouth, starting to pump him in your palm with one hand as the other grips hard at his knot. Painfully tight, you think, but Thor curses something hot that you don’t catch, and his hips nearly lift off the bed. 

“I’m - ,” he says, voice gone ragged. “Pup, I’m - ,” 

You feel it building, the tension of his release coiling right in his chest along the bond and you rut pitifully against the air and whine around his cock, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes with the strength of your desire for him. 

You need him to come. You need to bring him this pleasure. 

A flash of bitter prespend coats your mouth and then his hand is coming up, touching hurriedly at your hair, your ear, your jaw as his hips coil and tighten, and then he’s hissing your name and pulling you from him with a hand on your cheek, pulling your mouth from his cock even as you whine against his grip to get back to it, gone blind with want for him. 

His cockhead is just pulling past your lips when you feel it. A hot, heavy spit of spend against your lips and tongue, and Thor is groaning like a wounded animal as his hips jerk and jerk off of the mattress, into the hard grip of your hands.

His cock leaps in your hand as he comes, jolting like an electrical current as it shoots thick, creamy gobs of spend across your mouth. Up your cheek and across the bridge of your nose, scalding and heavy as it coats your skin. 

You’re moaning, breathless and shameless, and then pulling your head from his grasp and bending low to take his cock in your mouth again. Just in time for the last, hot spurts. Suckling gently at the head and drinking him down as you feel slick start to drip down your thigh from where you’ve grown messy for him.

He lets you for a moment, his chest heaving like he’s run a race, before his breath hitches and he pulls you off, keeping you off this time with a firm hand on your cheek and a deep groan. 

You stay there, crouched over his lap, and let yourself look at him. 

You watch his eyes travel over your face, pupils still blown out and blocking out all the blue there. You feel his gaze linger on the fat ropes of his release spattered across your chin and mouth. 

The bond roars like a wildfire as his thumb comes up to rub at it across your mouth, pressing it between your lips where you suck down on his fingers instinctively. 

He’s looking at you like he wants to eat you alive. 

You whine softly around his thumb, your eyes falling closed as you suck on it, your hips rocking against nothing. 

His nostrils flare on each exhale as he stares at you and you feel yourself tremble over his lap, mind going syrupy delirious with arousal. Your elbows start to shake where you’re holding yourself up, and Thor’s eyes go to them. 

He turns you, faster than you can blink, tucking you neatly underneath him and shoving his face against your throat. Opening his mouth over your thundering pulse, nipping there until you arch underneath him. 

“Please,” you whimper, clutching at the backs of his arms. Trying to pull him down onto you. Craving his weight between your thighs, where you’re soaked and hollow aching. 

He nips the underside of your jaw, hard enough to bruise, and you jolt in his arms again, whining loudly. Tilting your neck for him in an offer of submission. 

You can feel his breath on your throat in hot puffs and then he’s moving, pulling apart your knees and slotting himself between them. Firmly, tugging your hips to his until he’s rooted against your core. 

He rears up over you so he can watch you when he jarrs you with a soft, stuttered rut of his hips. 

Your back snaps as you throw your head back on a hoarse moan, arousal slicing through your belly at the insistent pressure of his hips pressed to yours. He does it again, another decadent roll of his hips, and his eyes are ember hot as he looks down at you and grips hard at your thighs. 

You nod, desperate. “Please,” you whisper. Canting your hips against his and letting your eyelids flutter shut at the syrupy spike of pleasure that rolls up your spine. 

He grips your thighs, and then your hips. Settling himself deep between your legs on a rough throated sound that has you blinking your eyes back open. Wanting to see him looking down on you. Needing to see the desire you can feel roaring along the bond. 

You reach up to your face and touch at your mouth with pleasure-numb fingertips. Pressing down on your lower lip on a sigh and pushing the fat gob of his spend past your lips and against your tongue on a soft groan. 

Thor snarls, and starts to fuck you. 

It’s just a feign of a fuck, just a hard rut of his hips against yours, the taut skin of his lower belly grinding  against where your core is covered in underwear and leggings, hard enough to knock the breath out of you. Shoving you up the bed on the first thrust and following you, gripping your hips tight as he gives himself over to the feeling of it. Of what it will feel like to have you. 

“Yeah,” you breathe, your head rocking against the pillow. “Yes, Thor. Please.” 

Your belly is coiling tight, hot little sparks lighting along your veins, and you know that you won’t last. 

He’s grunting out in soft, hot puffs through a set jaw with each jerk of his hips, looking entirely gone as he moves against you. 

Your heat is simmering somewhere deep inside of you. Licking along your nerves like a flame that’s just out of reach. Not here, not yet. But so close. Flickering underneath your skin and turning your mind to sugared molasses. 

The grip of his hands around your hips grounds you in the moment, keeping you in yourself as your release starts to build in your belly like a swirling tide. 

You’ll have him soon, like this. You’ll know what he feels like filling you and fucking you. Sinking his teeth into your neck and claiming you forever. 

He bends down over you as his hips work against yours, opening his mouth to taste at your throat again, and you start to shake beneath him. He’s making soft sounds in time with the movement of his hips, panted grunts against the thunder of your pulse. 

His teeth set on the ridge of your neck on a raw moan, and that tips you. The hint of a claiming bite, the heated promise of one, and you fall. 

Your release locks up your body on a rigid arch, a hoarse sound wrenching from deep in your throat as Thor rumbles against your neck. Dragging hips open lips across the leap of your jugular, letting his teeth catch on the thin skin there with a groan as he feels you lurch against him with an agonizing sound of relief. 

The bond surges, a suffocating roar of perfuming senses. Making your mind spin and your head loll back against the mattress as Thor’s weight holds you through the best and worst of it. 

You reach for him blindly, getting his jaw between your palms and pulling him down to you. Opening your mouth against his and gasping against him. Relishing in press of his body to yours, the taste and flick of his tongue past your lips. 

You breathe each other in in panting, desperate breaths, nipping and sucking at each other’s lips as you both shiver and return to yourselves. Your heat prickles and tingles down your spine. Receded for the moment, pushed back by the force of your pleasure, but there. Near. Very near. 

Thor ends up beside you, curling an arm around your waist as he nudges his nose along your cheek and starts to scent you. Rubbing his bearded jaw along your cheek and throat and exuding a heady, comforting scent into the space around you. Rumbling in his chest when you tilt your head to give him more of your neck, melting into him as he soothes you down to earth. Back into your bones and into his arms. 

The lights are still on, a muted yellow overhead shining through the windows out to where the sun has finally set and darkness has fallen. You feel as if you can feel the earth move beneath you, curled up pressed to Thor’s chest as he cares for you instinctively. 

You mean to push yourself to your feet and turn off the light. To get up and put a brush through your hair and get ready for sleep. 

But Thor’s warmth and weight and pull is too strong, too addictive,  and when he murmurs into your jaw, “stay,” you breathe against his skin and cling to him. Giving in to the ebb and flow of sleep as it comes in around you like an ocean tide and draws you out, out, out, into deep sleep. 

 

 

Waking feels like trying to breach the surface of a pool of molasses. It’s a slow, excruciating struggle to claw yourself to consciousness, and when your eyes finally open, you find yourself hopelessly tangled in heavy bedding. 

Delirium rests heavy over your mind, like a weighted, feverish blanket, Fogging up over all of your senses until everything feels like a muted, muffled approximation of feeling. 

Your heat. It took root in you while you slept. 

You manage to turn onto your belly with effort, the little movement stealing you of your breath, and push yourself up on all fours. To try to make it to the edge of the bed. 

You know, even without clear vision, that Thor isn’t in the cabin. 

Your mind slurs uselessly, all tangled up in itself as you scoot to the edge of the bed. Trying to think of where he was when you’d laid down. Trying to remember if he’d mentioned stepping out. Why he wouldn’t be here for you. 

Panic starts to grip up in your throat as you slip from the edge of the bed and land on the hardwood floor below on a cracking knee. You don’t even feel it, your head spinning like you’ve been drugged, and you cling to the heavy bedding to pull yourself lurchingly to your feet. Able to detect the faintest hint of his smell near the front door and following it on wobbly steps. 

You manage to pull the door open and the crisp rush of air clears your mind a shade. Shivers you to the core and knocks some of the fog lose, allowing your vision to clear and sharpen on the light of the fading sun and the long shadows casting over the slushy snow on the ground. 

It’s late afternoon. Early evening perhaps. You’d slept for hours. 

You stumble outside, gripping onto the door frame before pushing yourself off, in the direction of the faint wisp of his spicy scent on the cool air. You try to call for him but your voice dies in your throat as you blink through heavy lids and feel your belly seize in a brutal cramp that nearly brings you to your knees. 

You need him. You need Thor. 

The fever is nauseating and the crisp winter air catches on the slick that’s soaking your leggings between your legs, making you shudder at the conflicting sensation. 

You trip over to the porch railing, gripping your hands on it to keep yourself from falling. Feeling like you’ve had a half dozen shots of tequila, dizzy and dazed and so, so hot. 

Your mind turns over itself in a static, repeating loop, fear blooming large in your belly. Knowing that Thor wouldn’t have left you if he’d known you needed him. Picturing him, through the thick haze of your mind, laying bloody out in the snow somewhere. Hurt, somehow, and unable to make his way back to you. 

You need to go to him. You need to find him. 

The slush is frigid below your bare feet as you step down from the porch and put one foot in front of the other in halting steps. You follow faint footprints in the snow, treaded in the shape of Thor’s boots, lifting your nose on the air, desperate to catch any bit of his scent that remains. 

All you smell is crisp, mountain air, and a sob lodges itself in your throat. 

You’re halfway through the yard when your knees begin to give. Slowly at first, knocking weakly together, and then your balance starts to go as your heat recovers from the temporary, shocking clarity of the cold and your whole body turns syrupy and drunk on it once more. 

Tears thicken in your eyes, catching up in your throat as your sex aches and your belly churns. You whimper Thor’s name as you go down on your knees into the melting snow. 

Your strength leaves you as the heat consumes your senses, and you end up on the side of your hip, shivering with fever and the cold as you lock your shaking elbows to keep your upper body from the ground. 

You can barely lift your own head, nausea churning mercilessly with untethered arousal sickeningly in your gut, when you taste something turn on the air. Just a faint hint of earthy flavor on the cool breeze, and you do sob then, you chin falling weakly to your chest when you hear him, from across the clearing. 

“ ** _Pup_**  - ” 

It takes all the strength you have to lift your head to see him, your legs trembling uselessly underneath you. The sight of him takes your breath away. 

Thor is standing at the treeline, his arms stacked high with tree branches of varying thickness and lengths. Firewood, you think dimly, and you can’t even gather the strength to call out to him. 

Your vision is hazy with heat but even at a distance, you see every detail of him like he’s right before you. You watch his face twist with a flurry of emotion, shock and then fear, and a quick flash of anger, all play across his face in a fraction of time, and then he’s dumping the load in his arms clattering to the ground and running to you. 

He falls to his knees so hard beside you that it sprays snow up on your lap and you turn to him instinctively, sucking in gasping breaths of his scent that is clouding up the air with stress and a quick, burning twist of arousal. 

He takes you in his arms, scooping you up with no effort as you ragdoll against his chest, letting out a choked sound of relief as his smell envelopes you and soothes the aching burn of the heat in your veins. 

He’s here. He’ll take care of you. 

He’s a little winded as he lifts you to his feet, his lips parted as he rubs his cheek hard against yours. “Why are you - you’re _freezing_ , pup - I have to get you inside - “ 

You whimper and curl into him, your mouth opening over the exposed skin of his pulse in his throat and you suck on that skin hard enough that his grip tightens on you and he starts to move, carrying you across the clearing to the cabin. 

He’s talking the entire time, voice low and hot, angry, but not at you. 

“I thought I had time,” he murmurs, his arms starting to shake where they’re banded around you. “I checked you before I left - I’m -  _pup_  - “ 

But you’re sighing and licking at the base of his throat with submissive kitten licks, your cunt aching sweetly for him between your legs. The crippling nausea of your heat beginning to give way to the intoxicating scent of his arousal that’s beginning to cloud up your senses like warm blanket, his scent a soothing salve against the caustic burn of the hormones in your blood. 

He gets you to the porch and fumbles with the door for a moment, shifting you in his grip. You moan, breathless, at the strength of his arms around you, at the promise of his weight over you, and you nip at his throat, whining softly. Submissively. 

He lurches to a stop like you slapped him, his head falling down to press his cheek to yours, his face coloring as he rubs his nose along your jaw and up to your temple and then back down. Scenting you with deep, puffing breaths.  

“ _Fuck_ ,” he whispers, opening his mouth over your jaw and tasting your skin on a soft groan. “Fuck, pup. You smell...” 

You whine again, his name on your lips as your hands fist in the collar of his flannel jacket. “Please,” you manage to breathe, every part of your body aching with need. “Please, Thor - “

His teeth set on your jaw as he figures the door handle and kicks the door open and then shut with the toe of his boot. “I’ve got you,” he says fiercely into your throat. “I’ve got you, pup.” 

He carries you to the bed and leans low to place you on it. The proximity and weight of him has you whimpering and tugging him down, meeting his mouth with yours in a mess of lips and tongue that has you both panting into each other’s mouths. Your hands clutch at his shoulders when he tries to pull back, whining, trying to keep him near.

He presses a kiss to your chin and splays a gentle hand on your sternum, pinning you down to the mattress. His pupils are blown out, eyes entirely black with arousal. 

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, assuring. “Let me.” He presses a hot kiss to your lips and disentangles himself with care, keeping his hand on your chest to hold you as you pant and whine against the weight of it. 

He takes his free hand and curls his fingers around the waistband of your leggings, tugging down and baring his teeth unconsciously at the way your hips roll against his the pressure of his hand. 

It takes some effort to get them down your thighs, over your knees, and off your ankles, but your head tips back on a relieved groan at the rush of air against your core as Thor tosses them to the floor. Your underwear comes off next, tearing a little when it catches on your calves. 

You feel adrift at sea, anchored only by his palm pressed down, and you find yourself panting, open mouthed, as the heat starts to steal away your consciousness. Fogging you up around the edges. Your head starts to loll against the pillow, and you feel Thor’s hand curl around your jaw, pulling you to face him. 

“Stay here,” he tells you, his voice edging a little on a glint of  _alpha_  that has you desperate to comply, blinking your heavy eyelids hard as you force your eyes to stay on his. “Stay with me,” he says, nodding approvingly when your eyes meet his. 

He’s working his belt buckle with one hand, his other hand still spread over your sternum, and your hazy eyes catch on the blackness of his pupils and the flare of his nostrils as he yanks the zipper down and shoves at his jeans where they’re snug to his hips. 

Another wave comes in, thick and cloying and fogging up around your senses, and you lips part on a dying whine as your head tips again, back against the pillow. Feeling yourself start to fade even under his touch. 

“Pup - ” he warns, lowly, as he wraps a big hand around your thigh and tugs you close. 

Your legs fall open around him on a faint moan, your eyelids weighing down til you can hardly lift them. You want to reach for him, but you can’t find the strength to raise your arms. 

You hear the distant, soft clank of a belt buckle on a zipper and then the air is moving in a hot rush as he bends down low over you, fitting in between your spread legs and smearing the hot wet of his mouth over your jaw, the sharp edges of his canines catching on the skin there. 

Your sex aches as you open yourself to him by gravity and his weight over you, your head swimming. 

The smell of his arousal is heavy on the air, more virile than you’ve ever felt it and you know, in some deep, unconscious part of you, that he’s out of his mind with desire for you. For your body. For your soaking, aching cunt. You somehow know that he’d rip apart anything that tried to keep him from you now, with his teeth and bare hands, until nothing living remained. 

He’s mouthing at your ear, breath rapid and puffing over your throat, whispering hot words your heat-addled brain can’t decipher. Words heavy with desire and claim, that make the hair on the back of your neck stand, even without full comprehension of their meaning. 

You feel the heavy, blunt press of his cock between your legs and a halting moan tumbles from your lips, delirious with want, your heart lurching behind your ribs. 

He presses a hot kiss to your lips and murmurs something against your mouth that sounds something like ‘love’, and then he takes himself in hand and breaches you. Slowly at first, breathing harshly as he bullies the fat head of his cock past the tight squeeze of your entrance, and then all at once on hard slot of his hips. 

It knocks moans from both of you, ragged sounds of relief as he settles himself between your legs. Sliding until his hips are pressed snug up against yours, not an breath of space between you. Fully rooted in you, locking the breath up in your lungs at the impossible press and fill of him. 

Thor is winded above you, his chest heaving as he grips roughly at your thighs and settles deeper still. His expression is darkly feverish in intensity. Wild and feral looking as he looks down on your with blackened eyes, his nostrils flaring as his hips twitch unconsciously into the hot, velvet clutch of your cunt. 

“Fuck, pup,” he groans, his eyes squeezing closed as he ruts again, just a soft little nudge of his hips. 

You’ve never heard him speak like this. Never heard him curse lowly from a deep in his chest, voice a gravelly, raw thing that sparks fire along your spine. 

A moan slips from your lips. Sinful and decadent as your head tips back against the pillow. Baring your throat consciously to him. Tempting him. Watching him watch you through hazy eyes, your fingers clutching at the back of his biceps. 

His teeth close around the edge of your jaw, hard, as he pulls back and fucks into you for the first time. Growling lowly around the hold his teeth have on you as he roots himself deep again, plunging deeply into the welcoming heat of you. 

“I’ve got you,” he says, in awe as he grips at your hips. Voice tight and strained in his throat. “I’ve got you,” he breathes into your throat, as his hips start to go. Giving over to the instinct that is coursing through his blood, thickening up with intoxicating hormones. The instinct that tells him to give you what you need. That what you need is him. His cock and his knot and the safety that he can provide you. 

He lands another hard nip on your throat, just a taste of the real thing, of a claiming bite, before he pulls himself up from crushing you with a groan and anchors your hips between his hands and fucks you with a punishing strength. 

All you can do is cling to him, to ride the wave of the force of him. You’re making sounds you can’t control, breath being knocked from your chest with every hard thrust of his hips. Gasps and moans and whispered prayers of his name all strung together in a breathless litany. 

He is all around you. Everywhere, filling up every sense with the intoxicating pull of him. He is grunting on each rut of his hips, animal and overwhelmed as he mouths at your throat and nips at your jaw. Cradling your head with one of his hands as the other grips at your thigh and tugs you back down onto his cock with each jerk of his hips to yours. 

He’s fully dressed still, his jeans shoved down around his hips and you find yourself whining for him. Your hands scratching at the soft stretch of his shirt and seeking the fever hot skin beneath. Needing to feel the vast expanse of him along your body as much as you need to breathe. 

You whine again, a soft, ruined sound, and his eyes meet yours. He tilts your face to him and kisses you, panting against your mouth and tasting into you. Pulling back a breath and then kissing you again and again, nudging his nose against yours and murmuring sweet praises, moaning softly that he can’t believe you, can’t believe that you’re here with him. That you’re offering yourself to him in this way. That you’re his to keep. 

All you can manage is kiss him back, sucking on his lower lip and begging weakly for him. Nodding, telling him,  _yes, yes, Thor, please_  - 

Distantly, you can feel yourself soaking between your legs. Making a mess of his hips and yours and the bed below, a sloppy, wet slide of skin on skin that sounds lewd as it echoes in the still air of the cabin. You can feel yourself leaking around his cock on each thrust, your body opening to his like a flower. Taking him in, drawing him deeper and deeper. Clutching at his cock at each press, begging for the sweet ache of his knot. 

Something changes in Thor, something you can feel on the bond and smell thickening up on the air, as his breath strains and he begins to lose himself. 

“ _Pup_ ,” he says, groaned into the hinge of your jaw, and you know. You know. 

You feel something hot, something molten spill inside of you, and your head tips back on a delirious moan as he grunts and starts to come. 

He goes rigid, his spine locking up as he grips your hips with both hands and stills over you. His eyes squeezing shut as he fucks the hot spit of his seed deep into your sex, rooting himself into you with an iron grip. His cock jerking and flexing deep in your cunt, going and going, filling you up with a hot gush of spend. 

You cling to him, your arms coming around his shoulders and pulling him close. Your thighs falling apart instinctively as he puffs out hot, gritted breaths. 

Thor grunts, his eyes darting open, and then he’s pinning his hips to yours. Gripping at your hips and bearing down tightly, groaning lowly as he roots himself deep and his knot starts to thicken. 

The swell is fast, a hot, pulsing fill in your sex. Plugging you tight and locking you to him, and the first jolt of the stretch of it flashes over you like a hot flame, like every nerve ending in your body being set ablaze with a struck match. 

Your body seizes, your back arching as violent trembles overtake you, pleasure exploding from your core and shooting out through your limbs, down to your fingers and toes. Your lungs constrict on a ragged gasp, drowning, drowning in the ecstasy of it, your broken cry mingling with Thor’s as he grips at your hips and keeps you close. 

The bond rages, a scorching, living thing between you, and then Thor is pulling back from you quickly, to look at your face. Reaching up to grip at your jaw and meet your gaze, his eyes desperate and wild, seeking, asking - 

You nod, quickly,  _yes, yes, please,_  and then he’s leaning down and opening his jaw over the skin at the juncture of your neck and shoulder and clamping down with the sharp edges of his canines. 

White hot pain and euphoria crack in the air like a thunder clap, deafening and raw, and you feel your throat constrict on a scream before darkness rushes at your consciousness like a shroud and takes you under. 

 

 

You come back to yourself slowly, one sense at a time. Feeling first the steady thump of your heart behind your ribs and then warming on the heavy cover of scent all around you. Thor’s scent and yours, intertwined like a melody in the air. You feel him then, the long, hot line of his body pressed up against yours, and then with a pulse of your sex. Your lips part on a hot groan at the dawning realization of his knot, rooted deep in your cunt. 

He’s laying over you, still buried deep between your legs, holding most of his weight on his elbows that are pressed to the mattress on either side of your head. His body is bare, somehow, and fever warm, his skin like heated silk against yours, and you realize slowly that his head is bent low over your shoulder. That he’s rumbling deep in his chest as he sucks gently at the claiming bite at the edge of your throat.

Every pulse of his mouth over the broken skin swells the bond, like a rising and ebbing tide, tangling up around your throat and making your mind float and drift on what feels like a warm afternoon breeze. The pulse of his knot between your legs is the only thing rooting you there, in your body. You feel cosmic, almost. Out of your own body and something new entirely. 

You feel him notice your consciousness, hear him murmur your name and bend to rub his bristled cheek over yours, and that finally draws your eyes open. Pupils expanding at the low, faint light from light overhead as you blink yourself back, your vision focusing slowly on the timbered ceiling overhead. Catching and lingering on a bunch of green moss emerging from a particularly barked piece, wondering dimly how it’s remained alive there after all this time. 

Thor shifts against you and the knot tugs between your thighs and you moan again, your head tilting back on syrupy heat. “Thor,” you purr, arching your back and rolling your neck against the bedding. 

He appears in your view finally, his hair sweaty at the temples as his hand curls around your jaw and he tilts your head to face him. 

The expression on his face is indescribable. 

He regards you, with blue eyes and an aching, vulnerable expression of raw adoration. Of love. 

You realize there are tears on your cheeks when he wipes them away with a gentle press of his thumb. 

“Pup,” he says, like a question. His brows drawing as he takes you in below him. Watching you come back into your own eyes, into your own body and mind. He’s petting the line of your jaw, soothing strokes of his thumb.  

The clarity you feel as you look up at him is almost nauseatingly different than just minutes before. Back home in yourself again for the first time in hours. Able to see and hear and smell with near-normal precision as everything around you clarifies and sharpens. 

His expression tinges quietly with muted concern as your eyes linger on his face, indulgently looking your fill. Blinking slowly and contentedly up at him. 

He bends low to gently rub his cheek against yours in a whisper-soft scenting. “How do you feel?” he murmurs against your ear. 

You bring your hand up to pull him back so you can see his face, your palm cupping his cheek. His eyes search yours. 

“I feel you,” you whisper, feeling emotion thicken up in your throat. “I feel all of you.” 

The bond is everywhere at once, filling the room like a churning ocean wave. Setting you adrift in his arms, tethering you to him from a deep spot behind your ribs. You can feel his heartbeat on it, thumping healthily, heartily. You can feel his heart aching for you and can feel yours reach for him in return like whispering spirits. 

You feel complete, here with him. Like you’ve been walking around your life a splintered half, split down the middle and tattered along the edges. Limping along from day to day, not even knowing that your soul was going without. Not even realizing you were nowhere near whole. 

He wipes tears away from your cheek once more and you find yourself smiling up at him, your cheeks aching with it. “Thor,” you whisper, your voice breaking, and he bends low to press his mouth to yours. 

He shifts again, settling his weight over you, and you both groan as the knot nudges against where he’s still buried deep in you. 

He nudges his nose against your jaw apologetically. “Just a few more minutes, pup,” he promises. “Then I’ll take care of you.” 

You had always wondered what it would feel like to be knotted. You had heard horror stories in your shelter stays over the years of brutal ties, of omegas forced to take a knot out of heat or unable to bear the pain of it. You hadn’t known what to expect after seeing the size of his when he’d taken himself in hand and spent on your belly or when you’d felt the swell of it in your palm while tasting him. 

In the delirium of your heat, it feels like...being whole. A physical manifestation of the bond that’s thrumming between you, rising and falling on each shared breath. 

You turn your face and nudge your nose to his, tilting your chin up for a kiss that he freely gives. You clutch around the heat of him and feel a shot of syrupy pleasure trickle up your spine as Thor groans softly in your ear. You breathe out against his mouth and feel your back arch of its own accord. 

“Thor,” you murmur, blinking slowly and tilting your hips to his. “I could…” You flex on him again and whimper. “I could go again, I think.” 

That draws a noise from somewhere in Thor’s chest, a deep, wounded sound, and he moves as if compelled between your legs, shifting his weight while remaining rooted deep in you, whispering your name like a prayer. 

He lowers his head to the bite mark and opens his lips over the tender skin. When he sets his teeth gently on it, he ruts against you. Just a tiny little nudge of his hips that has you throwing your head back on a breathless groan. 

It’s just a few moments of that, of his teething gently at the claiming bite and nudging his hips to yours, before you’re gripping at his shoulders and shuddering apart beneath him, crying his name as pleasure tumbles down every nerve ending in your body, leave you boneless in its wake. 

He draws back from your neck and goes back to nuzzling you. Bumping his nose gently against yours and trading soft, loose-lipped kisses. Rubbing his cheek against yours and scenting you on a pleased, low rumble as you drift below him on a hazy sea of honeyed satisfaction. 

You must lose yourself in moment, your eyes closing on the warmth of it, because you’re roused by the feeling of Thor shifting between your legs. He leans low to press a soothing kiss to your jaw, and then he’s pulling free, and you groan at the feeling. Another kiss is pressed to your cheek and then you feel him move from the bed, taking all of his warmth and scent with him. 

You blink your eyes open slowly, finding them to be cleared once more. As if every orgasm recedes the tide of your heat for a time, until it slowly creeps back over all of your senses. 

You push yourself to sit upright and see the interior of the cabin clearly for the first time in a day. 

A fire is burning low in the hearth, the logs just glowing, dusty embers in the iron cradle, and you push the covers from your lap and kick them down the bed, nearly moaning at the rush of cooler air that rushes over you. 

Thor is at the fridge, bent over in half to look inside, and the sight of him, all tanned and lean and nude, makes something fond and stupid bloom in your chest.  _Love love love love_  radiates in your chest and down the bond and Thor looks over to you suddenly, his head appearing over the door of the fridge, like he felt it. A smile breaks across his face at the sight of you and he kicks the door shut with his foot and returns to the bed. 

He crawls over to you until your hips are touching and dumps his armful onto the bed - three bottles of water, some dried meat and fruit, a block of cheese wrapped in wax paper. 

He hands you a bottle of water and the moment the water hits your tongue, you realize you’re desperately thirsty. You down the bottle in three long pulls, crunching the bottle in your hands as you do, and when you’ve drained it, Thor is holding you another bottle, the lid already off. 

“Slow,” he tells you, voice soft, as you down the second bottle. 

You wipe your hand with the back of your hand and take a belly-deep breath as you hand the empty water bottle to Thor, who discards it to the floor. 

“Good?” he asks, his eyes meeting yours. He touches gently at your chin and you nod. Smiling at him even as your stomach rumbles. “Good,” he smiles back, his eyes creasing around the edges. “Eat what you can. I don’t think I have you for that long.” 

His eyes drift up to the sweat that’s starting to bead along your brow. You feel it, already starting to creep in around the corners of your senses, and you rip open a pack of beef jerky and start to eat as much as you can stomach. 

It’s not even ten minutes later that your vision starts to cloud and you murmur his name, feeling the bed start to swirl beneath you. 

You’re awake this time, to feel it come on. To feel it slowly overtake you.

It’s disorienting. Otherworldly. The feeling of slowly losing yourself to a biological drive that you cannot control or push back against. 

All your life, the drag of your conscious into your heat has felt like torture. Knowing that you are trapped in your body and losing control - that you won’t be able to protect yourself or defend yourself if someone were to decide they wanted you. Knowing that your biology is programmed so that they would indeed want you. 

This part of it, this miserable slow descension into haze, has always felt like a descent into madness. Like slowly drowning in rising panic and fear. 

But. Not now. No longer.

You feel blindly for him, your vision already starting to blur, and you find his hand. You press it over your chest desperately, your voice already lost to you. Pressing his palm to the slow, steady, sure beat of your heart. Needing him to know that you feel safe here with him. That you have no fear or trepidation. That instead of fighting against the inevitable tide of your heat, you are surrendering yourself to it. Because he is here, and he will care for you. 

The sound you hear him make, a distant, foggy thing, tells you that he knows, and when he guides you to lay back on the bed, you go. 

It’s slower, this time. You feel your heat trickle through your bloodstream and feel flame lick at every nerve ending along your spine. You can feel your rationality starting to slip, floating away as if on a breeze as your thoughts begin to melt together into one aching, needing mess. 

There’s no hurry, now. Not like before. You’re floating where you’re at, not in desperate throes of need, and you feel Thor take his time on you. Arranging you down onto the bed and nudging his nose along your jaw. Smelling behind your ear and scenting your throat. Tasting at the claiming bite with tongue and lips and making the breath slowly let from your lungs on a luxurious sigh. 

He makes his way down your body. Huffing quietly along your underarms, taking in your scent there. Nuzzling his face against your breasts with a soft groan before opening his mouth over a nipple and sucking. He tastes one breast and then the other, taking your pebbled nipple softly in his teeth and making your back arch from the bed on a throaty moan. 

He’s hard. You can’t see, can only see in swirls of muted color, but you know. You can feel his need pulse along the bond. You can smell the weight of his arousal hanging around you like a veil. You know that he’s ready for you. That he wants you. That he needs you as much as breathing. 

Your thighs part at the featherlight touch of his fingers and he goes to where you need him. Cupping his palm over your sex and feeling at the soaked mess there with soft, dragging fingertips. 

You whine, your hips bunching against his hand, and he soothes you with a kiss to your jaw with a quiet murmur you can’t understand. Another kiss, and then he’s moving down your body with a purpose that your foggy mind reads with crystal clarity. 

You whisper his name and your legs fall apart to make room for him as he presses a kiss to your belly and then fits his shoulders underneath your thighs. 

You feel his palms, big and dry, curl around the curve of your ass, pull you closer, and then you feel the tickle of his beard against your thighs and he’s pressing his mouth to you. 

He coaxes gentle, blooming pleasure from you with the heat of his lips and tongue. Rumbling lowly to himself as he laps at the slick folds of your sex, tasting you indulgently. Closing his eyes and moaning softly as he opens his mouth over you and drinks you in. 

The air weighs with the scent of his arousal and yours, a slow dance of pheromones that has your eyes tipping back in your head as Thor eases you into an easy release, and then another, holding your hips to his face as you writhe against him with hazy pleasure. Whimpering his name and begging him, feeling at his hair with trembling fingers, trying to pull him up to you to give you what you need. 

He does, then. Pushing himself up to his hands and knees with a soft parting bite into the meat of your inner thigh before he fits himself between your legs. Tilting your face to his and kissing you with lips warmed with your slick as he takes himself in hand and angles himself to meet you. 

He pushes into your needy sex with a soft groan and you let out a ragged groan of relief, your world narrowing in on you and him. On the slide of your bodies together and the aching pulse of the bond between you. 

He’s gentler this time as he finds purchase in you again and again, sucking hotly at the claiming bond on your shoulder as he moves over you. You breathe each other in and reach for each other, trading open-mouthed kisses and sighing against each other’s lips. Floating in the intimacy of one another, nudging your noses together and shivering against each other’s skin. 

He knots you with a breathless groan, biting down instinctively again on the claiming bite, loosening his jaws when you whine in pain, even as your back arches to meet him. 

“I’ve got you,” he tells you, his palm soothing around the curve of your jaw as he fills you up tight. “You’re alright, I’ve got you.” 

You shiver beneath him and nod, whispering desperately in agreement. Feeling the bond swell and warm between you on something that feels like safety and security and love and home. 

 

 

It goes on like this for some time. Oscillating periods of delirium followed by desperate coupling followed by moments of clarity and attempts to replenish your strength and his. 

Through it all, Thor is there. He watches you carefully, resting the back of his hand against your forehead, against your cheek when he sees you start to blink slowly and flush. After, he touches gently at your sex, to be sure you’re well, before bringing you food and water in bed. Gently pushing you to eat when you don’t feel like it, treating you kindly even when you’re being a baby about it. Talking you into it by trading every bite you take of food with a bite that he takes.  

He takes you more than you can count. More than you can make sense of. The first day is the most intense - a near constant cycle of rip-roaring arousal that has him laying you down and knotting you deep, only to be biting at your neck and taking you once more just an hour later. After that initial rush, those first hours of nauseating flame, your heat dials down to something more bearable, and you find yourself able to be more present with him. 

This time, you find, is your favorite. You find yourself blinking awake in Thor’s arms on the second day, a soft stream of light cutting across your face. Your heat a low simmer in the back of your mind as you breathe in and out, slowly, contentedly, as you take in the sight of his face, relaxed in peaceful sleep. He blinks awake when you can’t resist, when you can’t stop yourself from reaching for him and cupping your palm along his jaw, your heart aching for him. 

His eyes flutter open, blinking against the sunlight, and when he sees you watching, his cheeks curve in a sleepy smile. You see him do quiet mental math at how long you’ve been asleep, feel his hand trace down your spine to feel your temperature. Feel him relax back into the mattress when he realizes you have more time. 

And you talk, then. Sharing whispered stories back and forth, laughing and grinning and leaning in to kiss one another on every urge to do so that tickles along the bond. Speaking of the future and of dreams for it, what you want and what he wants, and finding them to be comfortingly compatible. Knowing that the claiming bite has tied you together forever, but relishing in the affirmation that it was right. That it was good. That you’ll be happy together. 

And when your eyes start to go distant, your lips parting on a quiet pant, Thor asks you without words, Yeah?, his eyebrows lifting as he props himself up onto his elbows and you nod your head in reply, your head tipping back against the pillow. 

He takes your jaw in hand and kisses you as he enters you, and you tremble and glow with the ferocity of the bond as he cages you in with his arms, leaning down over you to trade open-mouthed kisses, tasting into each other’s mouths as he moves over you. In you. Instinctively biting down on the claiming bite that’s purpled and dark as his knot starts to take. Gentling his teeth when he hears you whine and lurch in his arms at the tenderness there. 

By the dawn of the third day, you feel mostly whole. Nearly yourself again as you wake with a heartbeat ache between your legs, your sex tender and hot to the touch. He only takes you once that morning, when you get up on coltish legs to go to the kitchen sink to wash your face. You wilt over the basin on one last swelling rise of fever, your knees shaking at the pull of it, and he fits himself up behind you. Catching you before you fall and nudging your legs apart with his knee. He guides himself into you one last time, mouthing at the nape of your neck as you grip weakly at the rim of the porcelain sink and whisper for him to please, yes, Thor, yes - 

After, you sleep. You’re vaguely conscious of Thor carrying you to the bed and laying you down with tender care. Placing a pillow beneath your head and placing a palm over your breast to feel the steady beat of your heart as you begin to drift at once, turning and reaching blindly for him until he lays down with you. Curling up behind you and running his nose along the bruise of the claiming bite, scenting it and tasting it with soft lips as you fall into the deep, dark, pool of slumber. 

 

 

You wake to an empty bed but your heart beats steady and sure as you turn onto your belly and rub your face against his pillow that’s still warm to the touch beside you. You know without looking that he’s there in the cabin with you, the clarity of your mind allowing you to catalogue the richness of his scent on the air and know that it’s fresh and not residual. That he’s there with you even though you haven’t yet opened your eyes. 

You take the moment to breathe, your conscious mind slowly sorting itself back into place as you muscle past the last lingering vestiges of your heat and cast them aside. 

You’re sore everywhere, the muscles in your thighs and abdomen trembling even at rest. Your sex is a pulse between your legs, puffy and bruised and aching sweetly. For all of Thor’s attention, your throat is hoarse and dry. A smell settles around you gently, the chemical smell of propane and then butter and burning fat over it, and your stomach flips on a loud grumble. 

You finally open your eyes, rolling to your back on the bed and throwing the crook of your elbow over your forehead. Turning a little to see Thor in the kitchen, more dressed than you’ve seen him in days. He’s in jeans and a flannel shirt, still in heavy boots that are damp from the outdoors. He’s standing at the tiny stove, stirring something in a pan over an open flame. 

“You’ve been out?” you ask, your voice croaking from disuse. 

His face lights quietly when he turns and sees you up. “We were running low on firewood.” 

Sure enough, there’s a new stack next to the hearth, snow still melting on the top pieces, dripping down to the floor as the fire roars beside it. 

“How do you feel?” he asks, turning back to the stove and stirring again. 

You push yourself upright and find it easier than you expect. “Clear,” you tell him, a soft smile turning up the corners of your mouth. “Starving.” 

“Good,” he nods. “I’ve made enough for three of you.” 

It takes you a few moments to gather yourself and when you pull yourself to the edge of the bed, Thor goes to you instinctively. You pull the soft quilt over your bare lap and lean into Thor’s hand as he kneels between your knees and touches your cheek. 

He looks you over, his eyes searching as he touches your lower lip with his thumb. “You’re through it,” he says quietly. 

You nod against his palm, a soft smile on your lips. “You got me through it.” 

He snorts softly. “It was no burden,” he tells you, and then he stands and moves to the short set of dresser drawers between the bed and the far wall. 

He fishes through one drawer and then two, coming up with an oversized t-shirt and heavy sweatpants that he hands to you. 

You stand with some effort, his hand coming out to touch at your elbow as your knees knock together. 

He lets you dress yourself, but only just. Staying in your orbit with his hand out like he’s ready to catch you if you sway. 

The t-shirt is cotton soft and huge, the shoulder seams coming down nearly to your elbows. You hold his hand as you step into the sweatpants, one leg at a time, and pull them up around your hips. Rolling them over several times at the waistband to keep them from dragging on the floor. 

Something flickers on the bond, anchoring deep behind your ribs and feeling like butterflies, and when you look up, Thor is watching you with the softest expression. A small smile turning up the corners of his mouth. 

You hold out your arms, the t-shirt hanging around you like a mainsail of a ship. “How do I look?” you ask, holding back a snicker. Knowing you look absurd swimming in his clothes. 

But he shakes his head and reaches out to palm gently at the back of your head. Pulling you close. Saying nothing but somehow you read him loud and clear as the bond thrums on an impossible warmth of affection. 

Breakfast is ridiculous, an overflowing pan of scrambled eggs and several plates of bacon, with a mixing bowl full of russet potatoes sprinkled with rosemary and a half a loaf of bread made into toast. 

You sit next to him at the table, your shoulders brushing as you groan at the first taste on your tongue, your stomach grumbling audibly in impatient hunger. 

Thor eats twice what you do and the two of you can’t finish it all. By the time you’re done, the sun is shining through the windows and across the floor, bathing the cabin in a soft golden light. 

Belly full of food and staring at the bed of rumbled sheets lit in gentle light, you feel the impossible urge to sleep again.

“How,” you mutter to yourself. “How am I still tired?” 

Thor smiles over at you, squeezing your knee. “You can sleep.” 

You shake your head. Stubborn. “I’ve been nowhere but that bed for the last three days,” you grouse. You lift your arm and sniff at yourself, frowning. “God. I need to shower. Do you have a shower here?” 

Thor is up, clearing dishes. He looks up. “I do, but...the water heater is barely working. I checked this morning. Warmest it’ll go is tepid.” 

Your eyebrows raise. “Tepid sounds nice.” You’ve been overheated and sweating for days. God. You need to wash your hair. 

Thor frowns. “It’s colder than you think, pup.” 

But you’re standing and hobbling slowly across the cabin to a door on the far wall. “Through here?” you ask, and Thor paces past you, getting to the door first and slipping inside the room beyond. 

“Just,” he says, “Give me a second pup. Let me get it warmed up for you.” 

The bathroom is tiny, a porcelain pedestal sink with a round mirror above it and a toilet that barely looks like it would hold Thor’s weight. Thor shoves his sleeve up his arm and reaches into the shower stall, barely larger than a coat closet, and turns the water on. 

The pipes creak and groan as water sputters through the showerhead and onto the tile floor. 

Thor pulls his arm back and pulls the curtain back across the stall. “It’s cold, pup,” he warns, wiping his hand on his jeans. “Let it warm up for a minute, okay?” 

You tip up on your toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “It’ll feel good,” you assure him. “Do you have any toothpaste?” 

He sits on the toilet while you brush your teeth, like he thinks you won’t really wait for the water if he leaves. You run a comb through your hair next, grimacing at the sweat built up in your roots. 

You look at him, sitting on the little toilet in his flannel and jeans and boots, his hair tied back at the nape of his neck. 

“How do you look so good?” you ask suspiciously. 

He shrugs. “I stink, I’m sure.” 

“You don’t,” you grumble without any heat in it. “You always smell good.” 

He laughs at that, having the gall to look bashful. He stands and checks the water with his hand. “You’re going to freeze,” is all he tells you, his eyebrows raising in warning, but you pat his arm and thank him, pushing him towards the door. 

He goes, finally, mumbling about how _you could have rented a room with a jacuzzi but nooooo_ , and you shut the door behind him, a smile stretching across your cheeks in spite of yourself. Feeling the bond thrum even between the closed door. 

The water is frigid but you step into the spray eagerly. Shivering immediately but grabbing a bar of soap and lathering it on a wash cloth that’s hung over the showerhead. You scrub yourself from head to toe, cleaning off what feels like inches of grime. There’s no shampoo so you rub the bar of soap against your scalp, knowing you’ll have to brush it for an hour to get the tangles out but desperate to feel it clean again. 

By the time you’re washed and rinsed, your teeth are chattering. Your fingers fumble numbly with the thin towel Thor had left on the toilet seat, wringing what water you can from your hair and stuffing your legs into the heavy legs of the sweatpants you’d left in a pile on the floor. Pulling on the t-shirt again and scrubbing your pale palms up and down your arms, twisting at the door handle twice before you get it to unlatch and open. 

Thor is stacking dirty dishes into the sink and he looks up when you enter. You expect his face to crease with worry, seeing you shivering and dripping, but his face flashes on a grin as he crosses the room to you. 

“Told you,” he murmurs when you hold your arms and he scoops you up into his arms. “Told you you’d freeze to death little pup.” 

“Warm me up,” you whine, not willing to admit he was right, shoving your cold nose against his throat and laughing when he grunts in response. 

You push him towards the bed, urging him with your hips against his belly until he collapses back onto it. Taking the fall with his back and then turning once he’s down, moving your body underneath his and wrapping his arms around you. 

You shiver and curl into him, relishing the weight of his body against yours and the warmth radiating from him. Warm like the sun, like he always is. 

He tugs the quilt up over you, snugging you against his chest, and you rest your head on a pillow. Your eyes inches from his, blinking quietly at each other in the quiet space. 

You let out a long breath, shivering as his warmth bleeds over to you, and your hand comes up to stroke softly at his beard. 

He smiles against your palm and the bond trips and thrums somewhere anchored behind your ribs. 

You breathe together, shoulders rising and falling slowly as you settle slowly down into the mattress. His thumb strokes over the bite, touching gently at the molted purple bruise, softening when your breath hitches. 

The fire crackles in the hearth behind you and you feel your eyelids weighing. 

You shake your head against the pillow. “I cannot believe I want to sleep again.” 

He smiles and thumbs gently at your chin. “We can do that. We’ve got time.” 

His hand finds yours somewhere under the quilt and something quivers in your chest. 

“How long do we have?” you ask. Your voice small in the space between you. “How long can we stay?” 

“Before my next drive?” 

You nod. Thor squeezes your hand. 

“Four days. I think. Maybe five. I’m not exactly sure what day it is,” he admits with a goofy smile that fades as a thought occurs to him. “This one will be down the west coast.” He touches your cheek, his eyes sparkling. “That’s if you want to join, of course.” 

That makes you laugh. A full throated chuckle that has you tipping your head back with the joy of the feeling. When you meet his eyes again, you’re both beaming. The idea of you being anywhere but his side a proposal so absurd it’s funny. 

You touch at the bite on your shoulder with gentle fingers. Pressing down gently and feeling the bond spark like struck flint. 

“I’ll be there,” you assure him, biting your lip, and he nods, because he knows. “The west coast...California?” 

He nods. “California.” 

You groan happily. “Warm. Thank god. I haven’t been warm in a hundred years.” 

Thor laughs softly and pulls you closer, until your chest is pressed to his. 

You can tell from his expression that Thor is thinking, so you wait for him. Taking your time to catalogue the way that your scent mingles with his, creating something new entirely. Something that is not you or him, but both. 

When he speaks, his voice catches in his throat. “I’ve never seen a heat,” he admits softly. “I didn’t realize how much it would take out of you. How taxing it would be.”

You shrug, used to it, and nod. 

He rubs his cheek to yours in a soft scenting, a gentle comfort to him and you. “I can’t believe you’ve done that without me for years. I can’t imagine what it would be like alone.” 

Your heart aches and you can’t stop yourself from scooting closer to press a soft kiss to his lips. “I think I’ll forget soon enough. I already am, I think.” You smile, sleepily. “My bad memories are already being overridden with good ones.” 

Thor nods. “We’ll get there,” he promises. “All good ones.” 

“All good ones,” you agree on a sigh. Sinking further into the mattress and hiding a yawn behind your hand. 

You feel sleep slipping in around your senses, and you groan softly. “I want to get up,” you murmur, even as your eyelids droop. “I want…” your voice trails. “I want you to show me the property. Walk me around outside.” 

Thor nudges his nose along the line of your jaw. “I will,” he says. “We will, pup. We have time. Rest now.” 

“Will you sleep too?” you ask.

He nods and you feel it on your pillow as your eyes have slipped closed. “Yeah, pup. I will.” 

You breathe in and then out, feeling your heart beat softly behind your ribs. Feeling your body melting to the mattress beneath the heat of the fire and the weight of his body against yours. Fed and satisfied and warm and safe. 

“Will you be here when I wake?” you ask. 

You hear his smile more than you see it. You can feel the warmth of it even with your eyes closed. His nose nudges against your temple. 

“Yeah, pup,” he murmurs against your hair. “I will.” 

Your hand slips up blindly between you, laying flat against his chest and settling over the beat of his heart. You breathe in again, and then out. Drifting. Floating. 

“Always?” you ask, your voice a whisper as sleep surrounds you like an embrace. 

You feel his chest rumble under your palm. A quiet, pleased sound that warms you to your core. 

“Always.” 

Outside, the frigid wind picks up. Rushing through the barren tree branches and howling as it wraps around the house in a dizzy, cold swirl. Making the window panes rattle quietly as they keep the chill at bay. 

Inside, a log settles and crumbles to ash in the hearth as the fire crackles on and on. Thor presses his nose to your hair and takes a deep breath of the scent of you. Pressing a kiss to your temple as you give yourself slowly over to the irresistible pull of sleep. 

The bond thrums like a living thing between you. Rooted deep in your chest and his and blooming like a wild flower. Echoing warmth and safety and love back and forth between you like a whispered secret. One that will bond you to him for the rest of your days, a quiet, gentle reminder that you’ll keep with your love for him, right next to your heart. 

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally complete! I don't have the words to thank every one of you that read this fic and commented and encouraged me when life got in the way of writing. I love this story so much and I'm so delighted that others have too. There will eventually be a fourth installment which will be a snapshot into the future - it will be soft and domestic and there will be kiddos, so when it's posted, read only if that's your thing. Again, thank you so much for reading!


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